Recent Talks

Zoom Link:

https://rediris.zoom.us/j/84163489744?pwd=bd4IPA6tcZmVDXa0eYOODcAmnWgTRd.1

Meeting ID: 841 6348 9744

Passcode: 829227

https://youtu.be/cLZXeAfDTvQ

EST será un telescopio solar de clase 4-metros que se instalará en La Palma. Dos son las principales diferencias respecto a otros telescopios de tamaño similar: al trabajar a cúpula abierta está completamente sometido a las fuerzas producidas por el viento, y al ser solar recibirá una gran cantidad de radicación térmica que debe ser debidamente gestionada. En esta charla se presentarán los estudios preliminares realizados para la selección la solución técnica más prometedora para el M1 Assembly, así como unas pinceladas sobre el diseño preliminar que se está desarrollando a partir de ese concepto.

https://youtu.be/n_DA63bXK0A

The first part of this talk will present an overview of the tool "module" and its main commands and flags. "module" provides the dynamic modification of the user’s environment for supporting multiple versions of an application or a library without any conflict. In the second part, we’ll first explain what Python virtual environments are, and describe three actual cases in which they are used. We’ll then illustrate a practical example to install a Python virtual environment, and duplicate it on a different platform.

El Telescopio Solar Europeo (EST) se encuentra actualmente en la fase de diseño preliminar. Uno de los principales objetivos de esta etapa es identificar y definir los requisitos técnicos que guiarán su desarrollo y posterior construcción. En este sentido, las herramientas de modelado y simulación constituyen un elemento clave para la caracterización de prestaciones y la evaluación de distintas alternativas técnicas. El objetivo de esta charla es presentar algunos de los modelos desarrollados por la Oficina de Proyectos de EST para la evaluación de los requisitos dinámicos del telescopio. En concreto, se profundizará en el modelo mecatrónico diseñado para el control del movimiento de los ejes de la estructura.

El seminario se impartirá en el Aula y se anima encarecidamente a asistir presencialmente. Habrá café tecnológico tras la charla, a las 11h30 en la cafetería.

Unirse a la reunión Zoom:
https://rediris.zoom.us/j/87861451633

Enlace de Youtube:

https://youtu.be/uCTyZVr76dc

In the 16th SMACK, the very basics of LaTeX were introduced; showing how to make a basic document from scratch, set the printable size, inserting images and tables and etc. In this session, we will go into more advanced features that are also commonly helpful when preparing a professional document (while letting you focus on your exciting scientific discovery, and not have to worry about the style of the output). These features include automatically referencing different parts of your document using labels (this allows you to easily shuffle figures, sections or tables), making all references to various parts of your text click-able (greatly simplifying things for your readers), using Macros (to avoid repetition or importing your analysis results automatically), adding bibliography, keeping your LaTeX source, and your top directory clean, and finally using Make to easily automate the production of your document.

Lecture notes: https://gitlab.com/makhlaghi/smack-talks-iac/-/blob/master/smack-17-latex-b.md

FastCam is an instrument designed to obtain high spatial resolution images in the optical wavelength range from ground-based telescopes by using the Lucky Imaging technique. This technique is based on the idea of registering the instants of atmospheric stability, typically lasting just some milliseconds, using very short exposures. The instrument consists of a very low noise and very fast readout speed EMCCD camera capable of reaching the diffraction limit of medium-sized telescopes from 380 to 1000 nm. At the beginning of 2019, a new camera was commissioned. Now the instrument makes use of an Andor iXon DU-888U3-CSO#BV back-illuminated system containing a 1024x1024 pixel frame transfer CCD sensor from E2V Technologies. The pixel size is 13 microns and the camera allows up to 30 exposures per second. A new update of the camera acquisition software is currently being worked on. A complete characterisation of the detector is also being carried out in order to better understand and exploit all the performances of the instrument, applying particular configurations for each scientific case. A standard reduction of the data is also being implemented in order to offer it to all users of the instrument. The first FastCam was an instrument jointly developed by the Spanish Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena which started in 2006. Since then, the IAC assumed the instrument and tested it on several telescopes of the OOCC, among them the Nordic Telescope (NOT) where images were obtained in the optical domain diffraction-limited with high contrast, reaching a resolution of 0.1”/px. Currently FastCam is a common-user instrument at the Cassegrain focus of the 1.52-meter Carlos Sánchez Telescope (TCS, Teide Observatory) where observations are being made to calibrate the detector with sky tests. The idea is that in the near future it will be installed in the NOT to finish the commissioning process of the new camera and the whole acquisition system so that this instrument can be used by the international community.

El uso de campos magnéticos no es habitual en la instrumentación desarrollada por el IAC. Sin embargo, en la actualidad dos proyectos hacen uso de los mismos con propósitos bien distintos. Por un parte DALI (PoP), un prototipo de haloscopio que busca los hipotéticos axiones (¿materia oscura?) a altas frecuencias. Y, por otra, la nueva infraestructura criogénica del laboratorio de detectores (LISA) que, para caracterizar los novedosos mKIDs, hace uso de un criostato de tipo ADR (Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator), una tecnología que permite alcanzar temperaturas inferiores a 0.1 K. Y para ambas cosas necesitamos campos magnéticos intensos.

LaTeX is a professional typesetting system to create a ready-to-print or publish (usually PDF!) document (usually papers!). LaTeX is the format used by arXiv, and many journals, when you want to submit your scientific papers. With LaTeX, you "program" the final document: text, figures, tables, bibliography and etc, through a plain-text (source)  file. When you run LaTeX on your source, it will parse your LaTeX source and find the best way to blend everything in a nice and professionally design PDF document. Therefore LaTeX allows you to focus on the actual content of your text, tables, plots, and not have to worry about the final design (the "style" file provided by the journal will do all of this for you automatically). This is in contrast to "What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get" (or WYSIWYG) editors, like Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer, which force you to worry about style in the middle of content writing (which is very frustrating). Since the source of a LaTeX document is plain-text, you can use version-control systems like Git to keep track of your changes and updates (Git was introduced in SMACK 5, SMACK 6 and SMACK 8). This feature of LaTeX allows easy collaboration with your co-authors, and is the basis of systems like Overleaf. Previously (in SMACK 11), some advanced tips and tricks were given on the usage of LaTeX. This SMACK session is aimed to complement that with a hands-on introduction for those who are just starting to use LaTeX. It is followed by SMACK 17 on other basic features that are necessary to get comfortable with LaTeX.

Lecture notes: https://gitlab.com/makhlaghi/smack-talks-iac/-/blob/master/smack-16-latex.md

Gaia Data Release 3 (13 June 2022) contains astrophysical parameters for up to 1.5 billion sources derived from the low resolution BP and RP prism spectra, the high resolution RVS spectra, photometry and astrometry.

These include object classifications (star, galaxy, stellar spectral type,...), unresolved galaxies and quasar redshifts (~6 million), outlier objects, interstellar medium characterisation (extinction and DIBs), and spectroscopic and evolutionary parameters (~470 million) for a large variety of stellar types from ultra-cool dwarfs to hot OB stars.

In this talk, I will present an overview of the astrophysical parameter content of Gaia DR3 that was derived using the Astrophysical Parameters Inference System (Apsis) software. I will first give a brief description of the data, models and methods that were employed, and then I will focus on describing what type of parameters you can find in the archive and where to find them among the 30+ new tables. I will then describe the overall performance and present some pre-Gaia DR3 highlights.