The Census of Austral Nearby GAlaxies (CANGA survey) entails a study the past formation history of galaxies in a pixel-by-pixel approach. The program consists of an ongoing observational campaign using the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope (4.1 m, Chile). The CANGA survey will be a great step for Brazilian extragalactic astronomy, complementing the exquisite work that has been performed by the Sloan Digital Sky Server (SDSS) in the northern hemisphere. Our data, however, will be 15 times more sensitive opening up the stage for deep spatially-resolved stellar population analysis of faint galaxy regions, including disk outskirts, where tell-tale signs of the dark matter halo spatial distribution can be studied. Largely surpassing SDSS sensitivity, this program is the beginning of the deepest mapping of nearby galaxies in the southern hemisphere. The synergistic value with the ALMA radio interferometers in Chile, the European MUSE integral field spectrograph in the optical, Meerkat radio telescope in South Africa and further into the future, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), renders this program one of great potential.
We submitted a new proposal for the the 2019A semester showing our full collection and analysis strategy and were immensely happy to be the largest Brazilian program approved, with 66 hours of observing time in June/July 2019. |
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