2015年5月23日(土)、国立天文台三鷹キャンパスにおいて「国立天文台における天文学研究の最前線」をテーマに特別講演会および総研大入試ガイダンスが行われました。今年は学部の1年生から社会人の方まで総勢約40名の方々が参加されました。

特別講演会では、青木和光准教授（TMT推進室）、立松健一教授（チリ観測所）、竝木則行教授（RISE月惑星探査検討室）、浜名崇助教（理論研究部）らによって観測、理論における天文学の最前線についての講演が行われました。
特に、竝木則行教授による「惑星探査：生命のゆりかごを探して」ではアストロバイオロジーについて地球進化の話も踏まえて生命存在の可能性の話があり、他の発表者も巻き込むような質問も出てきていました。その他の発表についても参加者のなかから多くの鋭い質問が出てきていました。
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　2015年5月16日(土)、メルパルク京都で行われた国立天文台特別公開講座/総研大天文科学専攻入試ガイダンスには、12名の方々にご来場いただきました。“国立天文台における天文学研究の最前線”というテーマのもと、柏川 伸成准教授（TMT推進室）、髙田 唯史准教授（天文データセンター）、麻生 洋一 准教授（重力波プロジェクト推進室）、小谷 隆行 助教（太陽系外惑星探査プロジェクト室）の4名の講師による講演が行われました。
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3月25日、三鷹キャンパスにて専攻修了式が執り行われました。
平成26年度3月修了生の1名が出席し、教員・在学生に盛大に見送られました。
（今瀬さんは欠席）

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３月９日（月）～１２日（木）までの４日間、国立天文台三鷹キャンパスで、総研大・国立天文台スプリングスクールが開校されました。
平成２３年から始まったスプリングスクール。５回目を迎えた今回は、全国２５大学から４１名の参加者が集まりました。

最先端の研究者を講師陣として、理論天文学、重力波天文学、光赤外線天文学、電波天文学、太陽物理学の５つの天文学講義を４日間にわたって受講していただきました。

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Graduate students from SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Japan) conducted observation during the first half night of November 6, 2014 using Subaru Telescope. With the guidance and advices from the staff of the Subaru Telescope, they studied the surroundings of a quasar with Multi-Object InfraRed Camera and Spectrograph (MOIRCS). A faculty of SOKENDAI reports how the observation went.

Figure 1: Subaru Telescope’s enclosure at dusk. As the Sun goes down, the shutters of the Subaru Telescope enclosure started to open into a crisp air of about 4150 meter altitude (above 13,000 feet). Ventilators at the side and the rear of the telescope also start to open, to help equalize the temperature inside and outside of the building to ensure delivering sharp image into the observation instrument. (Credit: NAOJ,SOKENDAI)

The target of the night is a quasar of which luminosity is as much as 100 times greater than the entire Milky Way Galaxy. The source of energy is attributed to a super massive black hole in the nucleus of a galaxy in a great distance. Due to the large amount of their energy, it is possible to observe quasars even though they are far away.

How the quasars came to be? One of the mechanisms that might have contributed to them is the active star formation in their host galaxies. The indicator of such activity is the ionized hydrogen gas and the distribution of such gas can be detected in the specific emission lines in the spectrum, such as the one called H-alpha line. This line is in the visible wavelength, but shifts into the near infrared because the object is at the redshift z of 2.2. Use of MOIRCS, which has a wide field view as a near infrared imager, helps find such active star forming regions.

The observers of the night are the graduate students from SOKENDAI. SOKENDAI is a unique education-research facility in Japan, with only graduate course and bases on national institutions. National Astronomical Observatory of Japan serves as the Department of the Astronomical Science in SOKENDAI. It is important for a research facility to help grow the next generation researchers. Hence the staffs at Subaru Telescope assist and give advice to the graduate students’ learning.

The students took turns to intently monitor the observational condition, evaluate the data quality, and quickly adjust the integration time accordingly. By conducting observation at Subaru Telescope, they get credits for their course work. The faint signal from the distant universe is not readily noticeable in the quick look data. The high cloud somewhat diminished the signal, but never the enthusiasm of the observers.

Figure 2: (Top) Checking the telescope and the instrument condition during the daytime. (Bottom) Observation at nighttime. (Credit: NAOJ,SOKENDAI)

Toward the end of the observation, the students became confident about the quality of data. They describe their observation experience as precious and unique opportunity of learning, and call out “Come join us at SOKENDAI or other astronomy course, and together let’s explore the universe further.”

【Video】

(Credit: NAOJ,SOKENDAI)

[Link]
Subaru Telescope