The faint, diffuse side of the Universe is largely unexplored, with numerous interesting low surface brightness (LSB) phenomena awaiting to be mapped and understood. With state-of-the-art instruments such as Euclid, Rubin and Roman, we are starting to access a wealth of unprecedentedly deep datasets that are ideally suited for LSB science in the next decade. To fully unlock the potential of these forthcoming datasets, however, requires well understanding of various systematics. In this talk, I will introduce the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, a mosaic telescope optimized for LSB science as well as a forerunner in this field. I will summarize recent progress from Dragonfly. I will talk about our recent work in the development of imaging and reduction techniques for the preservation and unbiased measurement of LSB signals. I will present the diffuse optical cirrus imaged by Dragonfly, which is one of the major sources of confusion for ultra-diffuse galaxies, tidal tails, and intracluster light. These technical advancements, combined with next-generation deep wide-field imaging surveys, will open new opportunities to explore the faint diffuse universe below 30 mag/arcsec^2.
BIO
Qing Liu is currently an Oort Postdoc Fellow at Leiden Observatory. He obtained his Ph.D. at University of Toronto in 2024 under the supervision of Prof. Roberto Abraham. He received his B.Sc. at University of Science and Technology of China in 2018. His research focuses on development of low surface brightness imaging techniques. He has extensive experience in imaging data from CFHT, Gemini, HST, Euclid, and the Dragonfly Telescope. He has recently joined the Local Universe science working group of the Euclid Consortium.
Host: Shuo Zhang
