Schiminovich Group Laboratory

FIREBall II

The Faint Intergalactic Redshifted Emission Balloon (FIREBall) is a balloon experiment devised to probe redshifted Lyman alpha and metal-line emission from the intergalactic and circumgalactic medium (CGM). Designed and built in collaboration with Caltech and LAM (Laboratoire Astrophysique de Marseilles), FIREBall had its first science flight in July 2009 (following an engineering flight in 2007). FIREBall II will include the first UV multi-object slit spectrograph ever flown in space, and will be x100 more sensitive to Lyman alpha emission from the CGM than the original FIREBall experiment.

GALEX

The Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) is a NASA Small Explorer that observes galaxies in ultraviolet light. It was launched in April 2003 and continues to operate, providing the astronomical community with the first large ultraviolet sky surveys. Several imaging surveys of varying depths, as well as spectroscopic surveys, are conducted in two UV bands at 1350 - 1780 Å and 1770 - 2730 Å. By providing a wealth of data in a part of the spectrum that lacks large surveys, GALEX will yield data integral to the understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies.
GALEX Website

GASS

The GALEX Arecibo SDSS Survey (GASS) is an ongoing targeted survey at Arecibo, the world's largest single-dish radio telescope. It combines data from GALEX, SDSS, and measurements of neutral hydrogen gas content taken at Arecibo to determine star formation rates, gas fractions, and other physical parameters of some of the most massive galaxies. GASS targets galaxies that are in transition from the blue cloud of star-forming spirals to the red sequence of quiescent, old ellipticals in order to understand how and why galaxies shift from the blue cloud to the red sequence. GASS will produce the first statistically significant, homogeneous sample of this sparsely-studied population of massive transition galaxies, and thus will be instrumental in further shaping our understanding of star formation in galaxies and galactic evolution.
GASS Website

CHAS: Circumgalactic H-alpha Spectrograph

Instrumentation: Highly Efficient Silicon Detectors for the Ultraviolet