WIREDGOV

Both telescopes based at STFC’s Joint Astronomy Centre (JAC) in Hawaii have broken productivity records for the second year running. The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) and the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) posted record numbers of scientific papers in 2012.
 
UKIRT, the largest telescope in the Northern hemisphere dedicated to solely infrared astronomy, saw publications increase by 46 per cent from 138 in 2011 to  201 in 2012. The 3.8m telescope is being used to carry out a deep infrared sky survey, allowing astronomers to survey over 7500 square degrees of the Northern skies. Among the papers produced was the report of the first extrasolar planet discovered by the Wide Field Infrared Camera (WFCAM) Transit Survey. (PlanetWTS-1b).
 
JCMT also saw a slight increase this year with 102 publications - beating the previous record of 101 set in 2003 and matched in 2011. The world’s largest astronomical telescope designed specifically to operate in the submillimeter wavelength region is used to study distant galaxies and saw the majority of its papers citing research carried out on the STFC-built SCUBA instrument.

JCMT’s publication figures are particularly impressive given that a large proportion of observation time was used to commission the new SCUBA-2 instrument that has replaced the original SCUBA camera. Science is underway with SCUBA-2 which is expected to be highly influential on publication numbers for years to come.

More information can be found on the JAC website:

http://outreach.jach.hawaii.edu/publications/publication_record_2012.html (link opens in a new window)