Three-color image of the star field in which the brown dwarf has been discovered. The brown dwarf is the very red object seen at the top left of the image. This image illustrates how very different is the color of this object compared to the other cold stars around.
Below is a close-up showing the very red brown dwarf and two remote galaxies.
Click on the image on the left for a larger version.
This spectrum of the brown dwarf from the Gemini-NorthTelescope shows the brightness (flux) as a function of wavelength in the near-infrared. The peak at around 1.58 nm is characteristic of the p[resence of amonia.
Click on the image for a larger version.
© Canada-France-Brown-Dwarf-Survey 2008
The Canada-France-Hawaii telescope structure is based on an equatorial
mount design, with one of the axis of rotation set parallel to the axis
of the Earth¹s rotation. The mirror cell (the white circular
structure
at the bottom of the telescope, seen just above the person giving the
scale
on this photograph) holds and protects the most precious element: the
3.6-meter
diameter mirror.
Light from distant objects enters the dome through
the slit, bounces back from the mirror such that it will focus, and
create
a crisp image at the prime focus, MegaPrime, where the image is
captured
by MegaCam, CFHT's
wide-field digital camera (340 MegaPixels!) .
By today's standards, the CFHT telescope is a heavy
structure compared to the diameter of its mirror: the total mass of the
telescope is 325 tons, with 250 tons for the mobile section alone. Yet
the telescope can point to any location in the sky with an accuracy of
3 thousandths of a degree - and can follow astronomical objects with an
even better accuracy, thanks to an automated guiding mechanism that
compensates
for the apparent motion of the sky due to the Earth's rotation.
At the focal plane of MeagCam seen in this photograph, there are 40 CCDs. Each of them, known as the 'e2v 'CCD42-90'', account for more than 9.5 megapixels. 36 of them are used to image the sky, bringing the total number of pixels for the MegaCam mosaic to a staggering 340 million!
Want to know more about MegaPrime/MegaCam? You can go here (first light of the camera) or here for more technical information.
Various resolution downloads:
[Full scale -
954x805
- JPEG - 84Kb]
[Scaled
1/2th
- 476x402 - JPEG - 19Kb]