Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Hst/Nicmos Paschen-Alpha Survey Of The Galactic Centre: Overview, Qd Wang, H Dong, A Cotera, S Stolovy, M Morris, Cc Lang, Mp Muno, G Schneider, D Calzetti

Astronomy Department Faculty Publication Series

We have recently carried out the first wide-field hydrogen Paschen-α line imaging survey of the Galactic Centre using the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The survey maps out a region of ) around the central supermassive black hole (Sgr A*) in the 1.87 and 1.90 μm narrow bands with a spatial resolution of ∼0.01 pc (0.2 arcsec full width at half-maximum) at a distance of 8 kpc. Here, we present an overview of the observations, data reduction, preliminary results and potential scientific implications, as well as a description of the rationale and …