Nitrogen
The production histories of nitrogen in different types of galaxies
including the Milky Way are not understood.
As a means to get a reliable "fix-point" in this parameter space, we have now
in collaboration with Gerhard Hensler (Kiel)
and Birgitta Nordström (Copenhagen) obtained the first observational data
in a study to empirically map the build-up of nitrogen in the solar vicinity.
We have attempted to use the
European Southern Observatory, ESO
3.6m telescope with the CES spectrograph and the new
Very Long Camera (VLC) to get R ~ 200,000
spectra of a sample of stars from the Edvardsson et al. (1993, A&A 275, 101)
disk star survey.
The important NH lines are, however, so far out in the violet wavelength region,
that the new system has proven to be too inefficient for the project.
We are now considering to apply for time on the new UVES spectrograph at the
ESO Very Large Telescope, VLT.
Latest update: June 2, 2000