Recent near-infrared images from a new camera called PANIC (Persson’s Auxilliary Nasmyth Infrared Camera) on the 6.5-meter Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile, confirm that the camera and telescope hold a promising future for understanding the nature of dark energy, exploring the formation and evolution of distant galaxies, and identifying protoplanetary material around young stars.
Installed on the Clay telescope of the Magellan Project, PANIC can image some of the faintest targets ever observed. Under the best conditions, the immense light-gathering power and superb image quality of the Clay telescope will be used to observe supernovae in extremely distant galaxies, observations that will help to reveal the nature of the mysterious dark energy that comprises the majority of the energy in the universe. The nature of this dark energy is one of the outstanding questions in modern astrophysics.
“PANIC’s superb image quality can measure distant supernovae extremely precisely, measurements that are crucial for understanding the nature of the dark energy,” states Dr. Eric Persson, Carnegie Observatories astronomer and principal designer of the instrument.
Among the first objects PANIC has imaged is the Antennae – the famous pair of interacting galaxies laced with many young, massive star clusters and dust. Using observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and PANIC, the PANIC team made a composite image that demonstrates the excellent image quality of the camera and reveals red star clusters barely visible in the HST data.
“Near-infrared observations with PANIC can see through clouds of gas and dust that obscure our normal vision. They open up a whole new window to study star formation, distant galaxies, and supernovae,” noted Dr. Wendy Freedman, director of the Carnegie Observatories. In the second image, using a filter that isolates light from molecular hydrogen, the team viewed the planetary nebula NGC 3132 — a remnant gas shell from an old red star.
PANIC is the first near-infrared camera built for the Magellan Project, a consortium with over 300 astronomers from five institutions: the Carnegie Observatories, Harvard University, the University of Arizona, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Michigan. It was built at Carnegie over the last two years and began operations in Chile in April.
