Dr. Anton M. Koekemoer Hubble Space Telescope / Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) Click here to send me email.

Professional Information

Current Position:

• My position at STScI is team lead for the NICMOS camera, which was installed on the Hubble Space Telescope by the astronauts during Servicing Mission 2 in 1997, and is one of the imaging cameras on Hubble. This camera takes images at near-infrared wavelengths (1 - 2.4 microns), and has obtained almost 100,000 images since its installation on Hubble.

Research Interests:

• Formation and evolution of supermassive black holes in the early universe
• Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), radio galaxies and quasars
• High-redshift active galaxies: evolution, physical properties, and interaction with the environment
• Ionization modelling of extended (kpc-scale) emission-line regions in active galaxies
• Water maser emission from molecular gas disks around AGN

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

I was part of the 2004 Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF) project, where my role was to calibrate, reduce and combine the 800 ACS/WFC exposures to produce a set of final, cleaned "drizzled" images in each of the four filters.

The Press release presents the various images and other details about the program, after the public release took place on Tuesday 9 March 2004.

EXO's - Extreme X-ray / Optical sources

This is a newly discovered class of galaxies that are well detected in deep X-ray studies with the Chandra and XMM telescopes, but completely undetected at optical wavelengths in deep observations with Hubble and large ground-based telescopes (VLT, Gemini, Subaru, Keck etc). They are detected at infrared wavelengths, particularly with Spitzer in the 3 - 8 micron and 24 micron wavelength bands.

The Press release presents the various images and other details about the program, after the public release took place on Tuesday 1 June 2004.

I was also in charge of combining all the Hubble imaging data for the COSMOS project, which used 600 orbits of Hubble time to produce the largest single mosaic ever obtained with HST (about 2 square degrees); my science interest in this project is to search for supermassive black holes in the very early universe.

MultiDrizzle

In conjunction with the Dither Software Working Group at STScI, I developed the MultiDrizzle script that performs automatic registration, cosmic ray rejection and "drizzle" combination of dithered HST images.

For reference, the paper that describes MultiDrizzle is available here:

A. M. Koekemoer, A. S. Fruchter, R. Hook, W. Hack, 2002 HST Calibration Workshop, 337

Current research publications (1994 - 2009):

• Full publication list directly available from ADS (353 research publications currently)
  

A few recent publications:

• "The COSMOS Survey: Hubble Space Telescope / Advanced Camera for Surveys (HST/ACS) Observations and Data Processing"
  A. M. Koekemoer, Aussel, H., Calzetti, D., Capak, P., Giavalisco, M., Kneib, J.-P., Leauthaud, A., Le Fevre, O., McCracken, H. J., Massey, R., Mobasher, B., Rhodes, J., Scoville, N. & Shopbell, P. L.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0703095]
  [Full-resolution version: 2007, ApJS 172, 196]
  
  
• "The [OII]3727 Luminosity function and Star Formation Rate at z~1.2 in the COSMOS 2 Square-degree Field and the Subaru Deep Field"
  M. I. Takahashi, Shioya, Y., Taniguchi, Y., Murayama, T., Ajiki, M., Sasaki, S. S., Koizumi, O., Nagao, T., Scoville, N. Z., Mobasher, B., Aussel, H., Capak, P., Carilli, C., Ellis, R. S., Garilli, B., Giavalisco, M., Guzzo, L., Hasinger, G., Impey, C., Kitzbichler, M. G., A. M. Koekemoer, Le Fevre, O., Lilly, S. J., Maccagni, D., Renzini, A., Rich, M., Sanders, D. B., Schinnerer, E., Scodeggio, M., Shopbell, P., Smolcic, V., Tribiano, S., Ideue, Y. & Mihara, S.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0703065]
  
  
• "Dominant Nuclear Outflow Driving Mechanisms in Powerful Radio Galaxies"
  D. Batcheldor, Tadhunter, C., Holt, J., Morganti, R., O'Dea, C. P., Axon, D. J. & A. M. Koekemoer,
  2007, Astrophysical Journal, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0702498]
  
  
• "Lyman Alpha Emitters at Redshift 5.7 in the COSMOS Field"
  T. Murayama, Taniguchi, Y., Scoville, N. Z., Ajiki, M., Sanders, D. B., Mobasher, B., Aussel, H., Capak, P., A. M. Koekemoer, Shioya, Y., Nagao, T., Carilli, C., Ellis, R. S., Garilli, B., Giavalisco, M., Kitzbichler, M. G., LeFevre, O., Maccagni, D., Schinnerer, E., Smolcic, V., Tribiano, S., Cimatti, A., Komiyama, Y., Miyazaki, S., Sasaki, S. S., Koda, J. & Karoji, H.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0702458]
  
  
• "Radio observations of the CDF-South: a possible link between radio emission and star formation in X-ray selected AGN"
  E. Rovilos, Georgakakis, A., Georgantopoulos, I., Afonso, J., A. M. Koekemoer, Mobasher, B. & Goudis, C.
  2007, Astronomy & Astrophysics, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0702424]
  
  
• "Weak Gravitational Lensing with COSMOS: Galaxy Selection and Shape Measurements"
  A. Leauthaud, Massey, R., Kneib, J. P., Rhodes, J., Johnston, D. E., Capak, P., Heymans, C., Ellis, R. S., A. M. Koekemoer, Le Fevre, O., Mellier, Y., Refregier, A., Robin, A. C., Scoville, N., Tasca, L., Taylor, J. E., Van Waerbeke, L.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0702359]
  
  
• "The Stability of the Point Spread Function of the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope and Implications for Weak Gravitational Lensing"
  J. D. Rhodes, Massey, R., Albert, J., Collins, N., Ellis, R. S., Heymans, C., Gardner, J. P., Kneib, J.-P., A. M. Koekemoer, Leauthaud, A., Mellier, Y., Refregier, A., Taylor, J. E., Van Waerbeke, L.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0702140]
  
  
• "Dark matter maps reveal cosmic scaffolding"
  R. Massey, Rhodes, J., Ellis, R., Scoville, N., Leauthaud, A., Finoguenov, A., Capak, P., Bacon, D., Aussel, H., Kneib, J.-P., A. M. Koekemoer, McCracken, H., Mobasher, B., Pires, S., Refregier, A., Sasaki, S., Starck, J.-L., Taniguchi, Y., Taylor, A., Taylor, J.
  2007, Nature, 445, 286
  
  
• "Redshifts of Emission Line Objects in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field"
  C. Xu, Pirzkal, N., Malhotra, S., Rhoads, J. E., Mobasher, B., Daddi, E., Gronwall, C., Hathi, N. P., Panagia, N., Ferguson, H. C., A. M. Koekemoer, Kuemmel, M., Moustakas, L. A., Pasquali, A., di Serego Alighieri, S., Vernet, J., Walsh, J. R., Windhorst, R., Yan, H.
  2007, Astronomical Journal, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0701875]
  
  
• "The redshift evolution of early-type galaxies in COSMOS: Do massive early-type galaxies form by dry mergers?"
  C. Scarlata, Carollo, C. M., Lilly, S. J., Feldmann, R., Kampczyk, P., Renzini, A., Cimatti, A., Halliday, C., Daddi, E., Sargent, M. T., A. M. Koekemoer, Scoville, N., Kneib, J-P., Leauthaud, A., Massey, R., Rhodes, J., Tasca, L., Capak, McCracken, H. J., Mobasher, B., Taniguchi, Y., Thompson, D., Ajiki, M., Aussel, H., Murayama, T., Sanders, D. B., Sasaki, S., Shioya, Y., Takahashi, M.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0701746]
  
  
• "The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS): The morphological content and enviromental dependence of the galaxy color-magnitude relation at z~0.7"
  P. Cassata, Guzzo, L., Franceschini, A., Scoville, N., Capak, P., Ellis, R. S., A. M. Koekemoer, McCracken, H. J., Mobasher, B., Renzini, A., Ricciardelli, E., Scodeggio, M., Taniguchi, Y., Thompson, D.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0701483]
  
  
• "The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS): a large-scale structure at z=0.73 and the relation of galaxy morphologies to local environment"
  L. Guzzo, Cassata, P., Finoguenov, A., Massey, R., Scoville, N. Z., Capak, P., Ellis, R. S., Mobasher, B., Taniguchi, Y., Thompson, D., Ajiki, M., Aussel, H., Boehringer, H., Brusa, M., Calzetti, D., Comastri, A., Franceschini, A., Hasinger, G., Kasliwal, M. M., Kitzbichler, M. G., Kneib, J. -P., A. M. Koekemoer, Leauthaud, A., McCracken, H. J., Murayama, T., Nagao, T., Rhodes, J., Sanders, D. B., Sasaki, S., Shioya, Y., Tasca, L., Taylor, J. E.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0701482]
  
  
• "COSMOS: 3D weak lensing and the growth of structure"
  R. Massey, Rhodes, J., Leauthaud, A., Capak, P., Ellis, R., A. M. Koekemoer, Refregier, A., Scoville, N., Taylor, J. E., Albert, J., Berge, J., Heymans, C., Johnston, D., Kneib, J.-P., Mellier, Y., Mobasher, B., Semboloni, E., Shopbell, P., Tasca, L., Van Waerbeke, L.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0701480]
  
  
• "Deep GALEX Imaging of the HST/COSMOS Field: A First Look at the Morphology of z~0.7 Star-forming Galaxies"
  M. A. Zamojski, Schiminovich, D., Rich, R. M., Mobasher, B., A. M. Koekemoer, Capak, P., Taniguchi, Y., Sasaki, S. S., McCracken, H. J., Mellier, Y., Bertin, E., Aussel, H., Sanders, D. B., Le Fevre, O., Ilbert, O., Salvato, M., Thompson, D. J., Kartaltepe, J. S., Scoville, N., Barlow, T. A., Forster, K., Friedman, P. G., Martin, D. C., Morrisey, P., Neff, S. G., Seibert, M., Small, T., Wyder, T. K., Bianchi, L., Donas, J., Heckman, T. M., Lee, Y. -W., Madore, B. F., Milliard, B., Szalay, A. S., Welsh, B. Y., Yi, S. K.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0701478]
  
  
• "The Spitzer Legacy Survey of the HST-ACS 2 sq. deg. COSMOS Field: survey strategy and first analysis"
  D. B. Sanders, Salvato, M., Aussel, H., Ilbert, O., Scoville, N., Surace, J. A., Frayer, D. T., Sheth, K., Helou, G., Brooke, T., Bhattacharya, B., Yan, L., Kartaltepe, J., Barnes, J. E., Blain, A. W., Calzetti, D., Capak, P., Carilli, C., Carollo, C. M., Comastri, A., Daddi, E., Ellis, R. S., Elvis, M., Fall, M., Franceschini, A., Giavalisco, M., Hasinger, G., Impey, C., A. M. Koekemoer, Le Fevre, O., Lilly, S., Liu, M. C., McCracken, H. J., Mobasher, B., Renzini, A., Rich, M., Schinnerer, E., Shopbell, P. L., Taniguchi, Y., Thompson, D. J., Urry, C. M., Williams, J. P.
  2007, Astrophysical Journal Supplement, accepted / in press
  [Preprint: astro-ph/0701318]
  
  

Note:
Links to published refereed papers point directly to PDF files made available by the relevant journals: The Astrophysical Journal, The Astronomical Journal, as well as scanned Postscript files accessible via the NASA Astrophysics Data System.

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Old Homepage at MSSSO: http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~anton

Other Links - Christianity / Faith and Science:

Science and Faith - Discussing Astronomy Research with Religious Audiences (talk presented at AAS/AAPT 209th Meeting 9 Jan 2007, Seattle, WA)    [printable version]

Christians in Astronomy/Astrophysics

American Scientific Affiliation

AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion

Christians in Science