Aarhus Universitets segl

News archive

News and announcements

Jul. 9, 2014: The first campaigns with the Tenerife site have started. The first targets are the red giant 46 LMi (see the spectrum at the top) and the solar type star mu Her (still ongoing). The site works in fully automatic mode and has so fra performed extremely reliably. Installation of the telescope including the Coude path and the spectrograph is ongoing at the Delingha site.

Dec. 12, 2013: The SONG spectroscopic observations have now started in robotic form after the optics of the telescope now seems to be good. How good we will know, when decent weather appears so that the image quality can be tested. In the beginning we will concentrate on spectroscopic programs until the final test of the optics has been carried out.


Sep. 30, 2013: While we are still waiting for the active optics to be finally adjusted, we now have a spectrum with the spectrograph built in China of the Sun. The Sodium doublet is visible (central order) as well as the Halpha line (upper left). Click on the spectrum to enlarge.

Jun. 19, 2013: The secondary mirror has been repolished and a better image quality obtained as evident in the image of Saturn shown on this page. We expect to have Factory Acceptance before the end of June.

May 27, 2013: Observations are ongoing of two targets - eta Boo and tau Boo. We are still waiting for the final figuring of the secondary mirror before we can get final Factory Acceptance. 

Jan. 9, 2013: SONG Tenerife node to start operating in February after revision of optics. See Christmas card showing the 50BiN telescope at the Chinise site at Delingha. SONG node to be installed in May. The Sky tracker camera on the Tenerife node is operating now. To get an impression of the field of view look at the image of the Andromeda Galaxy.

 

Aug. 15, 2012: The Chinese SONG node is making good progress and expected to go into operation 2013. This is illustrated by the photo of the telescope under construction.

Aug. 12, 2012: First velocity measurements performed (see figure). Remote observing possible and robotic mode is under development.

Jul. 12, 2012: First spectra of stars recorded and analysed. At Vmag=2.48 using 90s exposures the error per data point is close to 1.3 m/s. The image quality of the telescope is not perfect due to a misunderstanding about the secondary mirror. A new mirror will be delivered in August. We are now starting remote operations of the site as a step towards a fully automatic mode. A proper figure showing the latest results will soon be presented here.

 

Jun. 11, 2012: Progress has been delayed by a number of breakdowns. The major problem has been one of the motor controllers for the telescope that stopped working during the initial telescope setup. Telescope operation will restart on Jun. 23. See the latest Solar measurement from Tenerife using a tracking fiber feed provided by IAC.

Apr. 25, 2012: Telescope and dome installed successfully. Test of optics to start.

Mar. 28, 2012: Spectrograph installed in the container. Telescope installation starts on April 16th.

Mar. 06 , 2012:  Installation of instruments and computers scheduled for March 13. The process can be followed on the webcams.

Mar. 01, 2012: A velocity precision of 1m/s is reached with the SONG spectrograph for daytime observations of the Sun in Aarhus.

As part of the test and verification of the SONG spectrograph our pre-shipment activities have included measurements of the blue sky (sunlight!) using an optical fibre to feed scattered light to the spectrograph. During days of clear weather we obtained spectra with a cadence of 20s and R=100.000 for the spectrograph and S/N ~ 200-400 through the iodine cell.

The resulting radial velocity curve is shown in the figure below. Simultaneous observations from the BiSON (LINK TIL BISON) instrument at Las Campanas are overplotted the SONG data in red.

It is clear that the agreement is very good. In order to ease the visual comparison the S(check News)ONG data have been smoothed by a 3-point moving mean. A preliminary analysis of the time-series indicates a short-term velocity precision of 1m/s per 20s observation.

Feb. 24 , 2012: All instruments are shipped from Aarhus to Tenerife.

Feb. 8, 2012: SONG Tenerife site installation planned March 2012. Telescope handover date March 21st. The progress can be followed by watching the site with Webcam 1 or Webcam 2.

Nov. 7th, 2011: The SONG China Site is now accessible at a new web page SONG China.

Oct. 31th, 2011: Telescope installation by Astelco delayed till Jan. 17, 2011. The first SONG web camera is now in operation (SONG Webcam 1 (username: guest, password: guest) ) and you can follow development at the site.

Sep. 29th, 2011: The presentations from the 4th SONG Worshop are now avalaible.

Apr 13th 2011: The danish infrastructure foundation has published its roadmap for the coming years recommending 16 projects for support. 6 projects are nominated for funding in 2011. Among the remaining projects figure two new SONG sites at 15 Mkr. each to be placed in Australia and South Africa. We expect funding to start next year, but this has not been decided.

Mar 27th 2011: First solar spectra obtained with the SONG spectrograph and dome support construction started at Tenerife (see the web camera).

Feb. 24th 2011: The 4th SONG Workshop is scheduled for September 15 - 20, 2011 at the College of
Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.

Jan. 5th 2011: The SONG China site has just (Dec. 27, 2010) approved the detailed design of the telescopes (SONG and customized telescope) and will soon start manufacturing the telescopes. Also a mini-SONG telescope is well under way.

Nov. 11th 2010: One of the iodine cells for SONG. The 'pinkish' colour is due to the iodine absorption. The iodine cell will be used as a wavelength calibrator in order to obtain radial velocities with 1m/s precision.

Nov. 1st 2010: The construction of the site at the Tenerife has begun. First step has been to remove the STARE telescope. You can follow the development at the site by clicking on a link to a web camera from the Bradford Telescope, which has been redirected to point at the SONG site.

Mar. 9th 2010: Major progress has been made with regards to many of the components in the observation-node. Several components are now in-house and are undergoing testing. Delivery of further components is expected during the spring. 

Dec. 14th 2009: We are pleased to announce that the third workshop of the Stellar Observation Network Group (SONG) will be held in Beijing of China from March 29 to April 2 of 2010. 

Mar. 23-26  2009:  2nd SONG Workshop in Aarhus.

Feb.  2008: Press-Release (in Danish) here.

Jan.  2008: The detailed design of a prototype SONG node has started

Mar.  2007: Final Review of Conceptual Design Phase

Aug. 2006: Midterm Review

May. 2006: Design work on the SONG spectrograph by the Anglo-Australian Observatory

Mar.  2006: The first SONG workshop held in Aarhus.

Dec.  2005: Funding for a Conceptual Design study of a network obtained