Weak gravitational lensing enables direct reconstruction of dark matter maps over cosmologically significant volumes. This research is currently telescopelimited. The Dark Matter Telescope (DMT) is a proposed 8.4 m telescope with a 3◦ field of view, with an etendue of 260 m deg, ten times greater than any other current or planned telescope. With its large etendue and dedicated observational mod...

MAGIC (Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov telescope) is presently the largest ground-based gamma ray telescope. MAGIC has been taking data regularly since October 2004 at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma. In this paper the MAGIC telescope status, its performances and some preliminary results on observed gamma ray sources are presented. c Copyright owned by...

We designed, built, and calibrated a new spectropolarimeter for the HiVIS spectrograph (R∼ 12000-49000) on the AEOS telescope. We also did a polarization calibration of the telescope and instrument. We will introduce the design and use of the spectropolarimeter as well as a new data reduction package we have developed, then discuss the polarization calibration of the spectropolarimeter and the ...

This paper describes the control system analysis and design for the three principal axes of the 2.5 mts SDSS Telescope. The telescope requirements are good tracking performance with errors lower than 165 marcsec rms in the speed range between 0 to 45 arcsec/sec for all the axes. The pointing error is about 2 arcsec rms per axis with a maximum absolute value of 5 arcsec. The telescope has the ad...

We have observed the short-period dwarf novae BWScl, BCUMa and SWUMa using the Hubble Space Telescope/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. In all three systems, the white dwarf is the dominant source of farultraviolet flux, even though in BCUMa and SWUMa an additional continuum component contributes ∼ 10% and ∼ 20% of the 1400 Å flux, respectively. Fitting the data with detailed white dwarf mo...

(b) for full collaboration list see J.Holder, " Status and performance of the first VERITAS telescope " , this proceedings. The Very High Energy Radiation Telescope Array (VERITAS) is a system of four imaging Cherenkov telescopes currently under construction at Kitt Peak, Arizona, USA. The first telescope has been in operation at the Mt. Hopkins basecamp since January 2005. We present here deta...

We present our results of deep 21 cm neutral hydrogen (Hi) line observations of five early and mixed-type dwarf galaxies in the nearby Sculptor group using the ATNF 64m Parkes Radio Telescope. Four of these objects, ESO294-G010, ESO410-G005, ESO540-G030, and ESO540-G032, were detected in Hi with neutral hydrogen masses in the range of 2− 9× 10 M⊙ (MHI/LB = 0.08, 0.13, 0.16, and 0.18 M⊙/L⊙, resp...

We report near simultaneous multi-color (RIY JHK) observations made with the MAGNUM 2m telescope of the gamma ray burst GRB 050904 detected by the SWIFT satellite. The spectral energy distribution shows a very large break between the I and J bands. Using intergalactic transmissions measured from high redshift quasars we show that the observations place a 95% confidence lower limit of z = 6.18 o...

It is possible to detect gravitationally-lensed quasars spectroscopically if the spectra obtained during galaxy surveys are searched for the presence of quasar emission lines. The up-coming 6 degree Field (6dF) redshift survey on the United Kingdom Schmidt Telescope will involve obtaining ∼ 10 spectra of near-infrared selected galaxies to a magnitude limit of K = 13. Applying previously develop...

The all-sky surveys in γ-rays by the imaging Compton telescope (COMPTEL) and the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET) on board the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory for the first time allows detailed studies of the extragalactic diffuse emission at γ-ray energies greater 1 MeV. A preliminary analysis of COMPTEL data indicates a significant decrease in the level of the derived cosmic dif...