Extreme spectrograph sees first light at LBTO and takes a unique look at recent Nova

Embargoed up to Thursday May 14 - 9am MST

Summary - PEPSI (Potsdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectroscopic Instrument), a one of a kind spectrograph currently without competition on any 8/10-m telescope, has seen its first light on the Large Binocular Telescope by observing Nova Sagitarii 2015 No. 2, which erupted on March 15th and reached about magnitude 4.3  

 
For Klaus Strassmeier, Director Research Branch "Cosmic Magnetic Fields" at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics (Potsdam, Germany) and the lead of the PEPSI project, "  .. a statement on performance of PEPSI, its place among other instruments on 8-10m instruments, and its importance for stellar physics ..., "

At the time PEPSI was still being commissioned on the telescope, 

"PEPSI tunity to a chance to Mark Wagner, scientist at LBTO, 

For Christian Veillet, Director of the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory (LBTO), " ... Importance of PEPSI for the observatory ... " 


The LBT is an international collaboration among institutions in the United States, Italy and Germany. LBT Corporation partners are: The University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona university system; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy; LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Germany, representing the Max-Planck Society, the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, and Heidelberg University; The Ohio State University, and The Research Corporation, on behalf of The University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota and University of Virginia.

The planetary system of HR 8799. Most of the light of the star has been erased by the processing of the images and the four planets, identified from b to e in the order of their discovery, are easily detected. 
- High resolution image with annotations
- High resolution image without annotations

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The LBTI (green structure in the center of the frame) between the two 8.4m mirrors of the LBT.  High resolution image 

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Close-up on LBTI
High resolution image

Contacts

• Andy Skemer (Steward Observatory, AZ, USA) - askemer at as.arizona.edu - 
  
• Anne-Lise Maire (Padova Observatory, Italy) - annelise.maire at oapd.inaf.it - +39 049 8293 519
  
• Wolfgang Brandner (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany) - brandner at mpia.de - +49 6221 528 289
• Christian Veillet (LBTO, AZ, USA) - cveillet at lbto.org - +1 520 349 4576

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