Author name: Knud Jahnke

What’s in Euclid’s First Light images?

Euclid’s “First Light” engineering images show a lot of things. There are obviously some astronomical objects, but also some stranger features that are not. The reason is that these images are “raw”, they have not been digitally treated the ways as needs to be done to create science-ready images. They contain a lot of features that are properties of the detectors used, but also unwanted internal reflections of the optics, as well as cosmic rays that hit all space telescopes. Converting these images into science-ready data is the task of the Euclid Science Ground Segment, which has developed a huge and very detailed data treatment (“data reduction”) pipeline over many years.

Euclid rendering

The Euclid Consortium Blog: going public

Euclid is a space mission in the making. We are the consortium of more than 2500 scientists and engineers partnering with ESA, to build the so far most powerful telescope for studying the nature of Dark Energy, Dark Matter and cosmology in general. We have been designing and constructing the two instruments on-board Euclid, are obtaining complementary ground-based data, develop the data analysis system, as well as simulate, test, iterate and improve all of the above again and again.

Red Book cover, detail

Publication: Euclid “Red Book” passes 2500 citation mark

Currently it is the most comprehensive summary of Euclid’s mission goals, its technology and science: the “Euclid Definition Study Report“, aka The Euclid Red Book. This 116 page ESA report from 2011 concludes Euclid’s initial design phase and describes Euclid at the point of adoption as a mission by ESA.

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