| Description: | By combining the dishes of the SMA, CSO and JCMT, the eSMA on Mauna Kea (Hawaii) is the submillimeter telescope with the highest spatial resolution in the world. On November 12, a ceremony was held, marking the first scientific results. The symbolic ribbon was cut by Louis Vertegaal, director of NWO-GBE.
The first scientific results describe high resolution absorption studies of the gravitationally lensed system PKS1830-211 in atomic carbon (Bottinelli et al, 2008, in press). Besides involvement in this paper, there has of course been an ASTRON/JIVE connection to this milestone, as Mark Bentum, Rob Millenaar and Huib van Langevelde have all been active in getting "our own" James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT, second from left) ready for this collaboration. |
