The Disk Mass project; science case for a new PMAS IFU module

We present our Disk Mass project as the main science case for building a new fiber IFU-module for the PMAS spectrograph, currently mounted at the Cassegrain focus of the 3.5m telescope on Calar Alto. Compared to traditional long-slit observations, the large light collecting power of 2-dimensional Integral Field Units dramatically improves the prospects for performing spectroscopy on extended low surface brightness objects with high spectral resolution. This enables us to measure stellar velocity dispersions in the outer disk of normal spiral galaxies. We describe some results from a PMAS pilot study using the existing lenslet array, and provide a basic description of the new fiber IFU-module for PMAS.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Refereed proceeding for the `Euro3D Science Workshop'. Contains updated layout of PPAK fibers, and improved M/L value for N398

Supporting teachers in planning and implementing cooperative learning methods in content lessons: Insights into the teacher training in the project RegioDiff

Kooperative Lernmethoden eignen sich besonders gut für den Einsatz im inklusiven Unterricht. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird das in der Steiermark (Österreich) durchgeführte Projekt RegioDiff vorgestellt, das Lehrpersonen der 8. Schulstufe kooperative Lernmethoden in einer Fortbildung (zwei Nachmittage) näherbrachte. Die Lehrpersonen bekamen die Möglichkeit, Erfahrungswerte zu teilen, Bedenken zu äußern, Methoden kennenzulernen, die sie gleich selbst in der Fortbildung erprobten, um sie anschließend im Unterricht einsetzen zu können. Im Rahmen des Beitrags wird der Frage nachgegangen, welche Elemente kooperativen Lernens von den Lehrpersonen in der Erprobung kooperativer Lernmethoden in ihren Klassen als besonders relevant erachtet und wie die Schüler*innen von den Lehrpersonen wahrgenommen wurden. Zudem wird untersucht, was die Lehrpersonen als förderlich an der Fortbildung erlebten und welche Inhalte noch sinnvoll für zukünftige Fortbildungen zu kooperativen Lernmethoden sein könnten. Vor und nach der zweiten Fortbildungseinheit wurden die Lehrpersonen mittels Fragebögen befragt, nach der Implementation wurden sie interviewt und es fanden außerdem Unterrichtsbeobachtungen statt. Zwar äußerten die Lehrpersonen anfangs teilweise Vorbehalte gegenüber kooperativen Lernmethoden, trotzdem fiel das Fazit am Ende überwiegend positiv aus. Unsicherheiten konnten zwar nicht vollständig ausgeräumt werden, dennoch stellte die Fortbildung eine wichtige Ressource für die Lehrpersonen dar. Es wurde deutlich, dass noch mehr Praxisbezug hilfreich gewesen wäre, was die Anleitung der Methoden und Beispiele, wofür sie eingesetzt werden können, sowie den Umfang des Feedbacks für die Schüler*innen betrifft. Laut eigenen Aussagen gewöhnten sich die Lehrpersonen schnell daran, Verantwortung an die Schüler*innen abzugeben und fanden sich in der Rolle der beobachtenden Moderation ein. Eine gute Stundenplanung (Zeit, Rahmenbedingungen, Gruppen, usw.) wurde als besonders gewinnbringend wahrgenommen, um die Methoden erfolgreich einsetzen zu können. (DIPF/Orig.)Cooperative learning methods are particularly well-suited for the use in inclusive lessons. This paper provides insights into the project RegioDiff (conducted in Styria, Austria) that introduced cooperative learning methods to Grade 8 teachers in a teacher training (two afternoons). In this training, teachers had the opportunity to share their experiences, express concerns, and gain knowledge about cooperative learning. Teachers could also try out the methods in the training to implement them in their classrooms afterwards. This paper explores the elements of cooperative learning experienced as relevant by the teachers and reports the benefits for the students. Additionally, the authors investigated the teachers\u27 opinions on the training\u27s benefits and tried to find out which additional elements could be beneficial for future trainings. Data were collected via questionnaires before and after the second training. During the implementation, the authors conducted classroom observations, and interviewed the teachers after the implementation. Despite the teachers\u27 reservations about cooperative learning methods at the beginning of the training, their conclusion at the end was predominantly positive. Although uncertainties could not be completely dispelled, the teacher training was an important resource for the teachers. The teachers stated it would have been helpful to receive more information about the guidance of cooperative learning methods, the potential use of specific methods, and the extend of feedback they could provide for the students. According to their own statements, the teachers quickly got used to handing over responsibility to the students and easily found themselves in the role of observing facilitators. To successfully use the cooperative learning methods, good lesson planning (time, framework, groups, etc.) was perceived as particularly beneficial. (DIPF/Orig.

PMAS: The Potsdam Multi Aperture Spectrophotometer. II. The Wide Integral Field Unit PPak

PPak is a new fiber-based Integral Field Unit (IFU), developed at the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, implemented as a module into the existing PMAS spectrograph. The purpose of PPak is to provide both an extended field-of-view with a large light collecting power for each spatial element, as well as an adequate spectral resolution. The PPak system consists of a fiber bundle with 331 object, 36 sky and 15 calibration fibers. The object and sky fibers collect the light from the focal plane behind a focal reducer lens. The object fibers of PPak, each 2.7 arcseconds in diameter, provide a contiguous hexagonal field-of-view of 74 times 64 arcseconds on the sky, with a filling factor of 60%. The operational wavelength range is from 400 to 900nm. The PPak-IFU, together with the PMAS spectrograph, are intended for the study of extended, low surface brightness objects, offering an optimization of total light-collecting power and spectral resolution. This paper describes the instrument design, the assembly, integration and tests, the commissioning and operational procedures, and presents the measured performance at the telescope.Comment: 14 pages, 21 figures, accepted at PAS

The Influence of Motion and Stress on Optical Fibers

We report on extensive testing carried out on the optical fibers for the VIRUS instrument. The primary result of this work explores how 10+ years of simulated wear on a VIRUS fiber bundle affects both transmission and focal ratio degradation (FRD) of the optical fibers. During the accelerated lifetime tests we continuously monitored the fibers for signs of FRD. We find that transient FRD events were common during the portions of the tests when motion was at telescope slew rates, but dropped to negligible levels during rates of motion typical for science observation. Tests of fiber transmission and FRD conducted both before and after the lifetime tests reveal that while transmission values do not change over the 10+ years of simulated wear, a clear increase in FRD is seen in all 18 fibers tested. This increase in FRD is likely due to microfractures that develop over time from repeated flexure of the fiber bundle, and stands in contrast to the transient FRD events that stem from localized stress and subsequent modal diffusion of light within the fibers. There was no measurable wavelength dependence on the increase in FRD over 350 nm to 600 nm. We also report on bend radius tests conducted on individual fibers and find the 266 microns VIRUS fibers to be immune to bending-induced FRD at bend radii of R > 10cm. Below this bend radius FRD increases slightly with decreasing radius. Lastly, we give details of a degradation seen in the fiber bundle currently deployed on the Mitchell Spectrograph (formally VIRUS-P) at McDonald Observatory. The degradation is shown to be caused by a localized shear in a select number of optical fibers that leads to an explosive form of FRD. In a few fibers, the overall transmission loss through the instrument can exceed 80%.Comment: 19 pages, 22 figure

Prototype development of the Integral-Field unit for VIRUS

VIRUS is a planned integral-field instrument for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET). In order to achieve a large field-of-view and high grasp at reasonable costs, the approach is to replicate integral-field units (IFU) and medium sized spectrographs many times. The Astrophysical Institute Potsdam (AIP) contributes to VIRUS with the development and testing of the IFU prototype. This paper describes the optomechanical design and the manufacture of the fiber-based IFU subsystem. The initial VIRUS development aims to produce a prototype and to measure its performance. Additionally, techniques will be investigated to allow industrial replication of the highly specific fiber-bundle layout. This will be necessary if this technique is to be applied to the next generation of even larger astronomical instrumentation.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, to be published in SPIE proc. 627

A MUSE map of the central Orion Nebula (M 42)

We present a new integral-field spectroscopic dataset of the central part of the Orion Nebula (M 42), observed with the MUSE instrument at the ESO VLT. We reduced the data with the public MUSE pipeline. The output products are two FITS cubes with a spatial size of ~5.9'x4.9' (corresponding to ~0.76 pc x 0.63 pc) and a contiguous wavelength coverage of 4595...9366 Angstrom, spatially sampled at 0.2". We provide two versions with a sampling of 1.25 Angstrom and 0.85 Angstrom in dispersion direction. Together with variance cubes these files have a size of 75 and 110 GiB on disk. They represent one of the largest integral field mosaics to date in terms of information content. We make them available for use in the community. To validate this dataset, we compare world coordinates, reconstructed magnitudes, velocities, and absolute and relative emission line fluxes to the literature and find excellent agreement. We derive a two-dimensional map of extinction and present de-reddened flux maps of several individual emission lines and of diagnostic line ratios. We estimate physical properties of the Orion Nebula, using the emission line ratios [N II] and [S III] (for the electron temperature $T_e$) and [S II] and [Cl III] (for the electron density $N_e$), and show two-dimensional images of the velocity measured from several bright emission lines.Comment: Resubmitted to A&A after incorporating referee comments; access to full dataset via http://muse-vlt.eu/science/data-release

3D Spectrophotometry of Planetary Nebulae in the Bulge of M31

We introduce crowded field integral field (3D) spectrophotometry as a useful technique for the study of resolved stellar populations in nearby galaxies. As a methodological test, we present a pilot study with selected extragalactic planetary nebulae (XPN) in the bulge of M31, demonstrating how 3D spectroscopy is able to improve the limited accuracy of background subtraction which one would normally obtain with classical slit spectroscopy. It is shown that due to the absence of slit effects, 3D is a most suitable technique for spectrophometry. We present spectra and line intensities for 5 XPN in M31, obtained with the MPFS instrument at the Russian 6m BTA, INTEGRAL at the WHT, and with PMAS at the Calar Alto 3.5m Telescope. Using 3D spectra of bright standard stars, we demonstrate that the PSF is sampled with high accuracy, providing a centroiding precision at the milli-arcsec level. Crowded field 3D spectrophotometry and the use of PSF fitting techniques is suggested as the method of choice for a number of similar observational problems, including luminous stars in nearby galaxies, supernovae, QSO host galaxies, gravitationally lensed QSOs, and others.Comment: (1) Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, (2) University of Durham. 18 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

The ERA2 facility: towards application of a fiber-based astronomical spectrograph for imaging spectroscopy in life sciences

Astronomical instrumentation is most of the time faced with challenging requirements in terms of sensitivity, stability, complexity, etc., and therefore leads to high performance developments that at first sight appear to be suitable only for the specific design application at the telescope. However, their usefulness in other disciplines and for other applications is not excluded. The ERA2 facility is a lab demonstrator, based on a high-performance astronomical spectrograph, which is intended to explore the innovation potential of fiber-coupled multi-channel spectroscopy for spatially resolved spectroscopy in life science, material sciences, and other areas of research.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, SPIE Conference "Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation" 2012, Amsterda