CTIO  > Science Talks  >  Abstracts

Nicholas Konidaris
California Institute of Technology, Astronomy Department (Caltech)
& NOAO South Visiting Astronomer
 

"Dissecting the Universe with a New Generation of Spectrographs"
 

Massive early-type red galaxies are considered a final Product of galaxy evolution. Understanding the star formation history of thesegalaxies is tough but will necessarily yield deeper understanding of the whole process of galaxy evolution. I will discuss observations of stellar populations and the often forgotten (and hard to measure)ISM in samples of massive early-type red galaxies observed at z ~ 0.7 and z ~ 0.1. With distant galaxies as the backdrop, I will describe the MOSFIRE spectrograph on Keck, which I am building.

Here the talk diverges from galaxies and switches gears to astronomical transients. I present "the SED Machine" -- a spectrograph system designed from the ground-up to systematically classify the outrageous numbers of objects discovered by modern transient surveys using "small" telescopes. This instrument working in conjunction with on-going synoptic surveys is a powerful combination and will energize diverse astronomical fields.