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The Wisconsin Hα Mapper (WHAM): A Brief Review of Performance Characteristics and Early Scientific Results

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2013

R. J. Reynolds ,
S. L. Tufte ,
L. M. Haffner ,
K. Jaehnig  and
J. W. Percival
R. J. Reynolds
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, 475 N. Charter St., Madison, WI 53706, USA
S. L. Tufte
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, 475 N. Charter St., Madison, WI 53706, USA
L. M. Haffner
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin, 475 N. Charter St., Madison, WI 53706, USA
K. Jaehnig
Affiliation:
Space Astronomy Laboratory, University of Wisconsin, 1150 University Ave, Madison, WI 53706, USA
J. W. Percival
Affiliation:
Space Astronomy Laboratory, University of Wisconsin, 1150 University Ave, Madison, WI 53706, USA
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Abstract

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Abstract. The Wisconsin Hα Mapper (WHAM) is a recently completed facility for the detection and study of faint optical emission lines from diffuse ionised gas in the disk and halo of the Galaxy. WHAM consists of a 15 cm diameter Fabry–Perot spectrometer coupled to a 0·6 m ‘telescope’, which provide a 1° diameter beam on the sky and produce a 12 km s−1 resolution spectrum within a 200 km s−1 spectral window. This facility is now located at Kitt Peak in Arizona and operated remotely from Madison, Wisconsin, 2400 km distant. Early results include a velocity-resolved Hα map of a 70° × 100° region of the sky near the Galactic anticentre, the first detections of Hα emission from the M I and A high velocity clouds, and the first detections of [O I] λ6300 and other faint ‘diagnostic’ lines from the warm ionised medium. Through the summer of 1998, WHAM will be devoted almost exclusively to a survey of the northern sky, which will provide maps of the distribution and kinematics of the diffuse HII through the optical Hα line in a manner that is analogous to earlier sky surveys of the HI made through the 21 cm line.

Keywords

ISM: generalISM: HII regionsISM: structureinstrumentation: spectrographs
Type
Research Article
Information
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , 1998 , pp. 14 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 1998

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