Blog #30, Lab 2 Preview

In the second lab we will be using the millimeter-wave telescope at the Harvard College Observatory to observe giant molecular clouds (GMCs) spread throughout the inner regions of the Milky Way. We will be pointing the telescope at a variety of GMCs to try and calculate orbital velocities in an attempt to us the data for a variety of calculations including finding redshifts of the clouds, number of stars interior to the sun, galactic age of the sun, and plot a rough orbit of the galaxy. 

- What is going to be the typical integration time per point?
Amazingly, the millimeter telescope only needs an integration time of 2-3 minutes per point and can see up to 50,000 light years away in that time. 

- Over what range of longitude do you plan to observe?
I plan to observe over galactic longitudes b ∼ 10° to ∼ 70°

- How many (l,b) positions do you plan to observe?
We plan to observe 4 different GMCs and their associated galactic (l,b) positions.

- Will all your target positions be above 30° when you plan to observe them?
We need all of our targets to be above 30° or we will get messy data from noise in the sky. Luckily we are observing around noon and all of our targets should be readily visible.

- At what LST are you going to start observing? At what EST? 

We will be observing around noon EST, which ends up being around 15:30 LST.