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The Inner Milky Way: APOGEE
| APOGEE at a glance |
- Bright time observations, Fall 2011 - Spring 2014
- 300-fiber cryogenic spectrograph, resolution R~20,000, S/N=100
- wavelengths 1.52-1.69 μm
- Velocity error 0.5 km/s
- Abundances of more than 15 elements
- 100,000 2MASS-selected giant stars to H=13.5, probing all Galactic populations
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The APO Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) will use high-resolution, high signal-to-noise infrared
spectroscopy to penetrate the dust that obscures the inner Galaxy. APOGEE will survey 100,000
red giant stars accross the full range of the Galactic bulge, bar, disk, and halo. Precise radial velociites
and detailed chemical abundance "fingerprinting" will provide unprecedented insights into the dynamical
structure and chemical history of the Galaxy. The SEGUE-II and APOGEE datasets will play a central role
in near-field cosmology tests of galaxy formation and the small-scale distribution of dark matter.
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| 2MASS map of the Milky Way, including light of half a billion stars. Only infrared
observations penetrated to the dust-obscured inner galaxy (credit: 2MASS, J. Carpenter, T. Jarret, R. Hurt). |
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