Scientific Colloquium
March 30, 2007
CLAIRE MAX
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ
"Nearby Active Galactic Nuclei
seen with Keck Telescope Adaptive Optics"
Adaptive optics corrects for
blurring due to turbulence in the
earth's atmosphere, so that under
some circulstances telescopes on
the ground can "see" as clearly as
if they were in space. This talk
will begin with an overview of
adaptive optics capabilities on the
current generation of 8-10 meter
ground-based telescopes. The talk
will then describe the use of
adaptive optics on the Keck Telescope
to study the cores of nearby
active galactic nuclei, which contain
supermassive black holes.