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Searching for the most distant objects ever detected

DAZLE is an instrument under development by the Anglo-Australian Observatory and the Institute of Astronomy (Cambridge) with the singular aim of detecting galaxies within a narrow redshift band, more distant than any objects yet observed.

DAZLE will do this by looking only at a very narrow wavelength band, seeking Lyman alpha emission from very distant galaxies. The ultra-violet Lyman alpha line is expected to be the brightest emission line of these galaxies, but will be observed in the infrared region of the spectrum because of the large redshift (z ~ 8). The redshift value is carefully chosen to place the detected wavelength in a very dark atmospheric 'window', clear of atmospheric emission that would obscure the light to broadband instruments.

The plan is to use the camera from the IoA CIRPASS instrument, mounting it to one of ESO's four VLT telescopes in Chile with narrowband filters to isolate the wavelength of interest.

AAO design of the instrument structure was completed in September of 2003, and DAZLE is presently being constructed at Cambridge by the IoA.

Relevant links

• What's 'z' anyway?
• What are we up to now? - what's new
• How is it being done? - some detail
• Why bother? - the science case (571KB PDF document)
• Who's doing it? - team members
• Cambridge's DAZLE page
• The camera - CIRPASS homepage
• The telescope - ESO's VLT
• Anglo-Australian Observatory Homepage

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Originally created by Andrew McGrath on January 25, 2002