Test Presentation

Robo-AO and Kepler

Journal Club presentation on Robo-AO follow-up of Kepler exoplanet candidates. Reviews Law et al. (2014), doi:10.1088/0004-637X/791/1/35.

3D Dust with PS1

I present a 3D dust map of the Milky Way, based on Pan-STARRS 1 photometry of over half a billion stars. Our 3D dust map covers the footprint of the 3pi survey, tracing dust out to a distance of several kiloparsecs and a depth of a few magnitudes of reddening in E(B-V). In each pixel in the map, we infer the distance and reddening of each star, and then determine the range of reddening versus distance profiles that are consistent with all the stars along the line of sight. The map has a typical angular resolution of 7', varying with the surface density of stars across the sky, and a distance resolution of about 25%. At large distances, our map agrees well with 2D maps of dust, such as Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998) and the newer Planck dust maps. At intermediate distances, it reveals structure from fine filamentary scales up to gross features in the Galaxy. In addition to PS1 photometry, we use near-infrared photometry from 2MASS. This allows us to peer through deeper clouds, where PS1 optical photometry is heavily extinguished. In the future, we will be able to leverage new datasets, such as LSST and GAIA, to produce the next generation of 3D maps of our Galaxy.