The Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) hosted a booth at the 241st AAS meeting was held in Seattle, WA on 8-12 January, 2023.

Jan 13, 2023 – LMT participation in the 241st AAS meeting

The 241st AAS meeting was held in Seattle, WA on 8-12 January, 2023. This was the first time the winter meeting was held in person in several years because of the pandemic, and it was a great chance to reconnect with the astronomy community. The Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) hosted a booth at the conference where we were able to share some new science results and promote the US Open Access Program, all of which is made possible by NSF/MSIP grant 2034318. Several members of the LMT team attended the event in person, while many others contributed content for the posters and slideshow displayed in the booth. The in person crew included the LMT Helpdesk team (Caleigh Ryan and Molly Watstein, UMass Amherst), who were able to inform the community on the status of the telescope and answer questions. In addition to established colleagues checking on the status of the telescope, we were excited about the high interest from early career astronomers wanting to learn more about the LMT.

We had two science posters displayed in the booth, the first of which featured results from all of the heterodyne instruments. This poster showcased the complementary nature of the LMT to ALMA data with a SEQUOIA map of M100, a B4R spectrum of outflows from the L1157 dark nebula, several RSR spectra from the PASSAGES collaboration, and the ever popular EHT M87* and Sagittarius A* black hole pictures that the LMT helped create with the MSIP1mm receiver. The second poster focused on the new TolTEC camera, including some preliminary commissioning images taken in mid-December, 2022. These images of the Crab Nebula and the Monoceros R2 star forming region provide a first look at TolTEC’s high resolution mapping at 1.1 mm, 1.4 mm, and 2.0 mm.

Zhiyuan Ma, a member of the TolTEC team, also provided live demonstrations of the TolTEC ObsPlanner and pipeline throughout the week. This provided a lot of engagement with the community who were interested in using TolTEC and the LMT in the future.

A few LMT team members gave talks and presented iPosters at the conference:

Caption to featured image: Members of the team pose in the AAS 241 LMT booth. From left to right, back to front: Min Yun (UMass Amherst), Peter Teuben (U. Maryland), Lee Mundy (U. Maryland), Alex Pope (UMass Amherst), Zhiyuan Ma (UMass Amherst), Caleigh Ryan (UMass Amherst), Molly Watstein (UMass Amherst), Pete Schloerb (UMass Amherst).