scholarly journals The Wisconsin Hα Mapper (WHAM): A Brief Review of Performance Characteristics and Early Scientific Results

1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Reynolds ◽  
S. L. Tufte ◽  
L. M. Haffner ◽  
K. Jaehnig ◽  
J. W. Percival

Abstract. The Wisconsin Hα Mapper (WHAM) is a recently completed facility for the detection and study of faint optical emission lines from diffuse ionised gas in the disk and halo of the Galaxy. WHAM consists of a 15 cm diameter Fabry–Perot spectrometer coupled to a 0·6 m ‘telescope’, which provide a 1° diameter beam on the sky and produce a 12 km s−1 resolution spectrum within a 200 km s−1 spectral window. This facility is now located at Kitt Peak in Arizona and operated remotely from Madison, Wisconsin, 2400 km distant. Early results include a velocity-resolved Hα map of a 70° × 100° region of the sky near the Galactic anticentre, the first detections of Hα emission from the M I and A high velocity clouds, and the first detections of [O I] λ6300 and other faint ‘diagnostic’ lines from the warm ionised medium. Through the summer of 1998, WHAM will be devoted almost exclusively to a survey of the northern sky, which will provide maps of the distribution and kinematics of the diffuse HII through the optical Hα line in a manner that is analogous to earlier sky surveys of the HI made through the 21 cm line.

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (S353) ◽  
pp. 130-133
Author(s):  
Sié Zacharie Kam ◽  
Claude Carignan ◽  
Michel Marcelin ◽  
Philippe Amram ◽  
Jean Koulidiati

AbstractWe present observations on optical emission lines acquired with the scanning Fabry-Perot interferometer of the observatoire du Mont Mégantic, of the Andromeda galaxy (M31). A 765 order Fabry-Perot were used with a fast readout EM-CCD. From data obtained, kinematic maps and data points for the rotation curve of the innermost part of the galaxy are derived. Several dozen of regions have been scanned with the Fabry-Perot interferometer and narrow band interference filters. The central 10’x10’ were scanned with five different filters. Observations have been made in order to get better Hα data for kinematics purposes.


1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-89
Author(s):  
Ulysses J. Sofia

Abstract The well measured gas-phase abundances in the low halo suggest that this region of the Galaxy has total (gas plus dust) metal abundances which are close to those in the solar neighborhood. The gas-phase abundances in the halo are generally higher than those seen in the disk, however, this affect is likely due to the destruction of dust in the halo clouds. Observations of high velocity clouds (HVCs) in the halo suggest that these clouds have metal abundances which are substantially lower than those measured for the local interstellar medium. These determinations, however, are often of lower quality than those for the low halo because of uncertainties in the hydrogen abundances along the sightlines, in the incorporation of elements into dust, and in the partial ionization of the clouds.


1987 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 189-190
Author(s):  
B. Whitmore ◽  
D.H.M. Cameron ◽  
R.F. Warren-Smith

It is currently believed that Herbig-Haro (HH) objects are a consequence of a high-velocity (up to at least 200 km s−1) outflow of material from a young embedded star. These flows can often be detected by deep observations of optical emission lines using CCD cameras.


1989 ◽  
Vol 120 ◽  
pp. 416-423
Author(s):  
Bart P. Wakker

For almost three decades neutral hydrogen moving at velocities unexplicable by galactic rotation has been observed. These so-called high-velocity clouds (HVCs) have been invoked as evidence for infall of neutral gas to the galaxy, as manifestations of a galactic fountain, as energy source for the formation of supershells, etc. No general consensus about their origin has presently been reached. However, it is becoming clear that no single model will suffice to explain all HVCs. A number of clouds may consist of material streaming toward the galactic center, as Mirabel (this conference) has advocated for several years, though their origin still remains unclear. A better understanding is mainly hampered by the fact that the distance remains unknown. An overview of the current status of the distance problem is given by van Woerden elsewhere in this volume.


1983 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
pp. 295-298
Author(s):  
Peter Shull

The optical emission lines of six SNRs have been observed at very high angular and kinematic resolutions. Kinematic ion temperatures were derived, and evidence was found in shocked regions for Maxwellian microturbulence on scales ≤ 0.01 pc, and for non-Maxwellian macroturbulence on scales > 0.1 pc. The widths of shocked regions in the Cygnus Loop and the existence of three types of spectral feature in the LMC remnants are discussed in terms of SNR evolution in cloudy interstellar media.


2004 ◽  
Vol 217 ◽  
pp. 12-19
Author(s):  
Joss Bland-Hawthorn ◽  
Mary Putman

Several observing teams have now obtained deep Hα spectroscopy towards high-velocity clouds (HVCs) which vary in structure from compact (CHVCs) to the Magellanic Stream. Our team has observed clouds which range from being bright (~640 mR) to having upper limits on the order of 30 to 70 mR. The Hα measurements can be interpreted as a distance constraint if we adopt a halo ionization model based on fesc ≈ 6% of the ionizing photons escaping normal to the Galactic disk (fesc ≈ 1 − 2% when averaged over solid angle). The results suggest that many HVCs and CHVCs are within a ~40 kpc radius from the Galaxy and are not members of the Local Group at megaparsec distances. We refer the reader to Putman et al. (2003) for the full version of the paper presented here.


1967 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 291-293
Author(s):  
I. S. Šklovskij

It is suggested that the neutral hydrogen atoms in clouds with high negative velocities observed at high galactic latitudes may, when moving towards a galactic H 11 region, be excited by radiation in the red wing of the Lyman-α profile. The steepness of this wing may cause a population inversion of the hyperfine-structure levels. Consequently, estimates of the hydrogen density in the high-velocity clouds, and of the flow of matter towards the galactic plane (or into the Galaxy), when based on the assumption of collisional excitation, may be too high by two orders of magnitude.


2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 390-392
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Pisano

AbstractModels of hierarchical galaxy formation predict that large numbers of low-mass, dark matter halos remain around galaxies today. These models predict an order of magnitude more halos than observed stellar satellites in the Local Group. One possible solution to this discrepancy is that the high-velocity clouds (HVCs) around the Milky Way may be associated with the excess dark matter halos and be the gaseous remnants of the galaxy formation process. If this is the case, then analogues to the HVCs should be visible in other groups. In this paper, I review the observations of Hi clouds lacking stars around other galaxies and in groups, present early results from our Hi survey of loose groups analogous to the Local Group, and discuss implications for the nature of HVCs and galaxy formation.


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