Search

We investigate the dependence of Lyα emitter (LAE) clustering on Lyα luminosity and connect the clustering properties of ≈L⋆ LAEs with those of much fainter ones, namely, ≈0.04L⋆. We use 1030 LAEs from the MUSE-Wide survey, 679 LAEs from MUSE-Deep, and 367 LAEs from the to-date deepest ever spectroscopic survey, the MUSE Extremely Deep Field. All objects have spectroscopic redshifts of 3, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 671, ISSN:0004-6361, ISSN:1432-0746

The aim of this study is to better understand the connection between the Lyman $\alpha$ rest-frame equivalent width (EW$_0$) and spectral properties as well as ultraviolet (UV) continuum morphology by obtaining reliable EW$_0$ histograms for a statistical sample of galaxies and by assessing the fraction of objects with large equivalent widths. We used integral field spectroscopy from MUSE combined with broad-band data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to measure EW$_0$. We analysed the emission lines of $1920$ Lyman $\alpha$ emitters (LAEs) detected in the full MUSE-Wide (one hour exposure time) and MUSE-Deep (ten hour exposure time) surveys and found UV continuum counterparts in archival HST data. We fitted the UV continuum photometric images using the Galfit software to gain morphological information on the rest-UV emission and fitted the spectra obtained from MUSE to determine the double peak fraction, asymmetry, full-width at half maximum, and flux of the Lyman $\alpha$ line. The two surveys show different histograms of Lyman $\alpha$ EW$_0$. In MUSE-Wide, $20\%$ of objects have EW$_0 > 240$ \r{A}, while this fraction is only $11\%$ in MUSE-Deep and $\approx 16\%$ for the full sample. This includes objects without HST continuum counterparts (one-third of our sample), for which we give lower limits for EW$_0$. The object with the highest securely measured EW$_0$ has EW$_0=589 \pm 193$ \r{A} (the highest lower limit being EW$_0=4464$ \r{A}). We investigate the connection between EW$_0$ and Lyman $\alpha$ spectral or UV continuum morphological properties. The survey depth has to be taken into account when studying EW$_0$ distributions. We find that in general, high EW$_0$ objects can have a wide range of spectral and UV morphological properties, which might reflect that the underlying causes for high EW$_0$ values are equally varied. (abridged), Comment: 28 pages, 21 + 1 figures, 7 + 1 tables, accepted for publication in A&A

We present a study of the population of bright early-type dwarf galaxies in the multiple-cluster system Abell 901/902. We use data from the STAGES survey and COMBO-17 to investigate the relation between the color and structural properties of the dwarfs and their location in the cluster. The definition of the dwarf sample is based on the central surface brightness and includes galaxies in the luminosity range -16 >= M_B >~-19 mag. Using a fit to the color magnitude relation of the dwarfs, our sample is divided into a red and blue subsample. We find a color-density relation in the projected radial distribution of the dwarf sample: at the same luminosity dwarfs with redder colors are located closer to the cluster centers than their bluer counterparts. Furthermore, the redder dwarfs are on average more compact and rounder than the bluer dwarfs. These findings are consistent with theoretical expectations assuming that bright early-type dwarfs are the remnants of transformed late-type disk galaxies involving processes such as ram pressure stripping and galaxy harassment. This indicates that a considerable fraction of dwarf elliptical galaxies in clusters are the results of transformation processes related to interactions with their host cluster., 12 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in A&A, typo corrected in abstract

We present the quantitative methods used for selecting candidate metal-poor stars in the Hamburg/ESO objective-prism survey (HES). The selection is based on the strength of the Ca II K line, B-V colors (both measured directly from the digital HES spectra), as well as J-K colors from the 2 Micron All Sky Survey. The KP index for Ca II K can be measured from the HES spectra with an accuracy of 1.0 Angstrom, and a calibration of the HES B-V colors, using CCD photometry, yields a 1-sigma uncertainty of 0.07 mag for stars in the color range 0.3 < B-V < 1.4. These accuracies make it possible to reliably reject stars with [Fe/H] > -2.0 without sacrificing completeness at the lowest metallicities. A test of the selection using 1121 stars of the HK survey of Beers, Preston, and Shectman present on HES plates suggests that the completeness at [Fe/H] < -3.5 is close to 100% and that, at the same time, the contamination of the candidate sample with false positives is low: 50% of all stars with [Fe/H] > -2.5 and 97% of all stars with [Fe/H] > -2.0 are rejected. The selection was applied to 379 HES fields, covering a nominal area of 8853 square degrees of the southern high Galactic latitude sky. The candidate sample consists of 20,271 stars in the magnitude range 10 < B < 18. A comparison of the magnitude distribution with that of the HK survey shows that the magnitude limit of the HES sample is about 2 mag fainter. Taking the overlap of the sky areas covered by both surveys into account, it follows that the survey volume for metal-poor stars has been increased by the HES by about a factor of 10 with respect to the HK survey. We have already identified several very rare objects with the HES, including, e.g., the three most heavy-element deficient stars currently known., 11 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

This paper describes the Third Public Data Release (DR3) of the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey. Science-grade quality data for 667 galaxies are made public, including the 200 galaxies of the Second Public Data Release (DR2). Data were obtained with the integral-field spectrograph PMAS/PPak mounted on the 3.5m telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory. Three different spectral setups are available, i) a low-resolution V500 setup covering the wavelength range 3749-7500 AA (4240-7140 AA unvignetted) with a spectral resolution of 6.0 AA (FWHM), for 646 galaxies, ii) a medium-resolution V1200 setup covering the wavelength range 3650-4840 AA (3650-4620 AA unvignetted) with a spectral resolution of 2.3 AA (FWHM), for 484 galaxies, and iii) the combination of the cubes from both setups (called COMBO), with a spectral resolution of 6.0 AA and a wavelength range between 3700-7500 AA (3700-7140 AA unvignetted), for 446 galaxies. The Main Sample, selected and observed according to the CALIFA survey strategy covers a redshift range between 0.005 and 0.03, spans the color-magnitude diagram and probes a wide range of stellar mass, ionization conditions, and morphological types. The Extension Sample covers several types of galaxies that are rare in the overall galaxy population and therefore not numerous or absent in the CALIFA Main Sample. All the cubes in the data release were processed using the latest pipeline, which includes improved versions of the calibration frames and an even further improved im- age reconstruction quality. In total, the third data release contains 1576 datacubes, including ~1.5 million independent spectra. It is available at http://califa.caha.es/DR3., CALIFA is the first legacy survey being performed at Calar Alto. The CALIFA collaboration would like to thank the IAA-CSIC and MPIAMPG as major partners of the observatory, and CAHA itself, for the unique access to telescope time and support in manpower and infrastructures. The CALIFA collaboration thanks also the CAHA staff for the dedication to this project. We thank the anonymous referee for his/her help in improving this article. SFS thanks the director of CEFCA, M. Moles, for his sincere support to this project. SFS thanks the CONACYT-125180 and DGAPA-IA100815 projects for providing him support in this study. RGB, RGD, and EP are supported by grants AYA2014-57490-P and JA-FQM-2828. SZ is supported by the EU Marie Curie Integration Grant “SteMaGE” Nr. PCIG12-GA-2012-326466 (Call Identifier: FP7-PEOPLE-2012 CIG). J. F-B. from grant AYA2013-48226-C3-1-P from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), as well as from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA grant agreement number 289313 B.G-L- acknowledges financial support by the Spanish MINECO under grants AYA2013- 41656-P and AYA2015-68217-P Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism’s Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC12009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, MAS. L.G. also acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. and AYA2013-42227-P from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and TIC 114 and PO08-TIC-3531 from Junta de Andalucía. AG acknowledges support from the FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n. 267251 (AstroFIt). RAM was funded by the Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). JMA acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild). IM and AdO acknowledge the support by the projects AYA2010-15196 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and TIC 114 and PO08-TIC-3531 from Junta de Andalucía. AMI acknowledges support from Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the STILISM project (ANR-12-BS05-0016-02). MM acknowledges financial support from AYA2010-21887-C04-02 from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. PSB acknowledges support from the Ramón y Cajal program, grant ATA2010-21322-C03-02 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). CJW acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. VW acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDMorph P.I. V. Wild) and European Career Re-integration Grant (Phiz-Ev P.I. V. Wild). YA acknowledges financial support from the Ramón y Cajal programme (RyC-2011-09461) and project AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, both managed by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, as well as the ‘Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy’ (SELGIFS) programme, funded by the EU (FP7-PEOPLE-2013- IRSES-612701) within the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions scheme. ROM acknowledges support from CAPES (Brazil) through a PDJ fellowship from project 88881.030413/2013-01, program CSF-PVE., This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from EDP Sciences via http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201628661

We have performed HST imaging of a sample of 23 high-redshift (1.8

CALIFA is the first legacy survey being performed at Calar Alto. The CALIFA collaboration would like to thank the IAA-CSIC and MPIA-MPG as major partners of the observatory, and CAHA itself, for the unique access to telescope time and support in manpower and infrastructures. The CALIFA collaboration thanks also the CAHA staff for the dedication to this project. R.G.B., R.G.D., and E.P. are supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion under grant AYA2010-15081. S.Z. is supported by the EU Marie Curie Integration Grant "SteMaGE" Nr. PCIG12-GA-2012-326466 (Call Identifier: FP7-PEOPLE-2012 CIG). J.F.B. acknowledges support from grants AYA2010-21322-C03-02 and AIB-2010-DE-00227 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), as well as from the FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA grant agreement number 289313. Support for L.G. is provided by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC12009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, M.A.S.L.G. also acknowledges support by CONICYT through FONDECYT grant 3140566. A.G. acknowledges support from the FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreement n. 267251 (AstroFIt). J.M.G. acknowledges support from the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the Fellowship SFRH/BPD/66958/2009 from FCT (Portugal) and research grant PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012. RAM was funded by the Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). J.M.A. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDmorph; P.I. V. Wild). I.M., J.M. and A.d.O. acknowledge the support by the projects AYA2010-15196 from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion and TIC 114 and PO08-TIC-3531 from Junta de Andalucia. AMI acknowledges support from Agence Nationale de la Recherche through the STILISM project (ANR-12-BS05-0016-02). M.M. acknowledges financial support from AYA2010-21887-C04-02 from the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad. P.P. is supported by an FCT Investigador 2013 Contract, funded by FCT/MCTES (Portugal) and POPH/FSE (EC). P.P. acknowledges support by FCT under project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029170 (Reference FCT PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012), funded by FCT-MEC (PIDDAC) and FEDER (COMPETE). T.R.L. thanks the support of the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte by means of the FPU fellowship. PSB acknowledges support from the Ramon y Cajal program, grant ATA2010-21322-C03-02 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). C.J.W. acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. V.W. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant (SEDMorph P.I. V. Wild) and European Career Re-integration Grant (Phiz-Ev P.I.V. Wild). Y.A. acknowledges financial support from the Ramon y Cajal programme (RyC-2011-09461) and project AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, both managed by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, as well as the "Study of Emission-Line Galaxies with Integral-Field Spectroscopy" (SELGIFS) programme, funded by the EU (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701) within the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions scheme. We thank the referee David Wilman for very useful comments that improved the presentation of the paper., This paper describes the Second Public Data Release (DR2) of the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey. The data for 200 objects are made public, including the 100 galaxies of the First Public Data Release (DR1). Data were obtained with the integral-field spectrograph PMAS/PPak mounted on the 3.5 m telescope at the Calar Alto observatory. Two different spectral setups are available for each galaxy, (i) a lowresolution V500 setup covering the wavelength range 3745–7500 Å with a spectral resolution of 6.0 Å (FWHM); and (ii) a medium-resolution V1200 setup covering the wavelength range 3650–4840 Å with a spectral resolution of 2.3 Å (FWHM). The sample covers a redshift range between 0.005 and 0.03, with a wide range of properties in the color–magnitude diagram, stellar mass, ionization conditions, and morphological types. All the cubes in the data release were reduced with the latest pipeline, which includes improved spectrophotometric calibration, spatial registration, and spatial resolution. The spectrophotometric calibration is better than 6% and the median spatial resolution is 200 : 4. In total, the second data release contains over 1.5 million spectra., Instituto de Salud Carlos III Spanish Government AYA2010-15081 AYA2010-15196, European Union (EU) PCIG12-GA-2012-326466, Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) AYA2010-21322-C03-02 AIB-2010-DE-00227, FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission, via the Initial Training Network DAGAL under REA 289313, Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism's Millennium Science Initiative IC12009, Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 3140566, Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) from FCT (Portugal) SFRH/BPD/66958/2009, Spanish programme of International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI), European Research Council (ERC), Junta de Andalucia TIC 114 PO08-TIC-3531, French National Research Agency (ANR) ANR-12-BS05-0016-02, Spanish Government AYA2010-21887-C04-02, FCT Investigador Contract - FCT/MCTES (Portugal), European Commission Joint Research Centre European Social Fund (ESF), FCT - FCT-MEC (PIDDAC) FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-029170 FCT PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012, European Union (EU), Spanish Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte by FPU, Ramon y Cajal program from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) ATA2010-21322-C03-02, European Union (EU) 303912, European Career Re-integration Grant, Spanish Government RyC-2011-09461 AYA2013-47742-C4-3-P, European Union (EU) FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612701, PTDC/FIS-AST/3214/2012, Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ST/K000985/1

GRB 021004 is one of the best sampled gamma-ray bursts (GRB) to date, although the nature of its light curve is still being debated. Here we present a large amount (107) of new optical, near-infrared (NIR) and millimetre observations, ranging from 2 hours to more than a year after the burst. Fitting the multiband data to a model based on multiple energy injections suggests that at least 7 refreshed shocks took place during the evolution of the afterglow, implying a total energy release (collimated within an angle of 1.8 deg) of ~ 8x10^51 erg. Analysis of the late photometry reveals that the GRB 021004 host is a low extinction (Av ~ 0.1) starburst galaxy with M_B ~ -22.0., 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&Ax

The Hamburg Quasar Survey is a wide-angle objective prism survey for finding bright QSOs in the northern extragalactic sky ($|b| > 20^{\circ}$; $\delta > 0^{\circ}$). The taking of the prism plates for 567 fields covering this area was completed in 1997. Including direct plates for fields with $\delta > 20^{\circ}$ the plate archive contains now 1871 plates. In this paper we present a first list of 121 quasars, which were verified by slit spectroscopy in the years 1986-1991, while experiments to develop efficient selection techniques were made. The sample contains objects with brightnesses $15\leq B \leq 19.5$ and redshifts $z\leq 2.8$ collected over various parts of the sky, for which objective prism plates were available at that time.

One of the most intriguing discoveries of astrophysics in the last decade was to realize that the mass of galactic black holes is tightly correlated to the large scale properties of their host galaxy bulges. The main physical processes at work in shaping this relation is still not clear. One of the main path followed to provide additional constrains to theory is to determine the evolution of the black hole mass—galaxy relation with redshift. I will review in this talk the status in which we are currently standing. I will then report on recent results that we obtained with HST/NICMOS observations of low luminosity host galaxies of z>1 AGN. The quality of our data allows us to quantify the contribution of disks to the total stellar‐mass of our host galaxies. Our work suggest that the ratio between black‐hole mass and bulge stellar‐mass was already evolving in the last 9 Gyrs.

I briefly recall some basic features of gravitational lensing, chiefly in the context of multiple image formation which is the most widely observed phenomenon of ‘galaxy lensing’. In such cases, the angular scales involved are suitably matched to the sizes of existing integral field units, and therefore the impact of 3D spectroscopy has been largest. I review some recent advances of studying galaxy-scale gravitational lensing with integral field units, highlighting the investigation of small-scale structure in both lenses and sources.

We determine the metallicity distribution function (MDF) of the Galactic halo by means of a sample of 1638 metal-poor stars selected from the Hamburg/ESO objective-prism survey (HES). The sample was corrected for minor biases introduced by the strategy for spectroscopic follow-up observations of the metal-poor candidates, namely "best and brightest stars first". [...] We determined the selection function of the HES, which must be taken into account for a proper comparison between the HES MDF with MDFs of other stellar populations or those predicted by models of Galactic chemical evolution. The latter show a reasonable agreement with the overall shape of the HES MDF for [Fe/H] > -3.6, but only a model of Salvadori et al. (2007) with a critical metallicity for low-mass star formation of Z_cr = 10^{-3.4} * Z_Sun reproduces the sharp drop at [Fe/H] ~-3.6 present in the HES MDF. [...] A comparison of the MDF of Galactic globular clusters and of dSph satellites to the Galaxy shows qualitative agreement with the halo MDF, derived from the HES, once the selection function of the latter is included. However, statistical tests show that the differences between these are still highly significant. [ABSTRACT ABRIDGED], Accepted for publication in A&A

We present preliminary results from the Hamburg/ESO survey for Damped Ly-alpha (hereafter, DLA) Systems. This survey is characterized by (i) the good knowledge of the biases affecting the parent QSO survey, (ii) the brightness and (iii) the relatively wide magnitude distribution of the background QSOs. Therefore, it is well-suited to study possible magnitude-dependent biases in DLA surveys, such as the one expected from dust obscuration. We have systematically searched for damped Lyman-alpha line candidates in 5 A resolution spectra of the 188 QSOs that constitute our statistical sample. These candidates have later been reobserved with UVES at the ESO--Very Large Telescope (VLT) for confirmation and accurate N(HI) measurements. In the redshift range covered by the survey, 19 DLA systems have been discovered. Over the whole survey, we find that the number density, n(z), and cosmological density of gas, Omega_gas, have comparable values to the ones obtained by CORALS (Ellison et al. 2001). However, the number densities of DLA systems n(z) in two sub-samples of equal absorption distance path defined by the magnitude of the background QSOs differ by a factor of about 5. We estimate that the probability that n(z) is equal in the two sub-samples is < 0.003. A similar, only slightly less significant difference is found for Omega_gas., 3 pages, 3 figures. To appear in IAU 199 conf. proc.: "Probing Galaxies through Quasar Absorption Lines," eds. Williams, Shu, Menard

We report on the analysis of B band imaging data of 57 low-redshift QSOs and Seyfert 1 galaxies selected from the Hamburg/ESO-Survey, for which host galaxy dependent selection biases are greatly reduced compared to other optical surveys. Only one object in the sample is known to be radio-loud. We adopted a procedure to remove the AGN contribution by subtracting a scaled point spread functions from each QSO image. To reclaim the integrated host galaxy flux we correct for oversubtraction based on simulations. This method shows to be quite insensitive to the host galaxy morphological type, which we can unambiguously established for 15 of the 57 objects. The quasar host galaxies are detected in all cases. The hosts are very luminous, ranging in absolute magnitude M_B from -19.0 to -23.8, with an average of M_B,gal = -21.5, considerably above L* for field galaxies. For the luminous QSO subsample with M_B < -23 the average host absolute magnitude is M_B,gal = -23.0, while for the complementary low-luminosity AGN we get M_B,gal = -21.2, roughly equal to L*. The luminous host galaxies in the sample are typically approx. 1 mag brighter than expected when inferring B band luminosities from studies of similar objects at longer wavebands. We argue that this mismatch is not likely to be explained by selection effects, but favor host galaxy colours significanlty bluer than those of inactive galaxies. Although published B band data are scant, this result and the findings of other authors are in good agreement., 15 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We report about the progress of two ongoing wide-angle survey projects: the Hamburg Quasar Survey (HQS) in the northern hemisphere, and the Hamburg/ESO survey (HES), its southern counterpart. Prime scientific goals of these projects are: to compile large samples of high-redshift (1.5 ≲ z ≲ 3.2), bright (B≲18) QSOs suitable for high-resolution spectroscopy; to provide targets with unabsorbed lines-of-sight for ultraviolet spectroscopy with HST; to discover new gravitationally lensed systems; to directly determine the local luminosity function of QSOs; to study evolution of the most luminous part of the QSO population; to construct a spectroscopic database for the identification of ROSAT X-ray sources.

We obtained 1.2 A resolution spectra over the range 3175–7575 A for the two components of the gravitational lens candidate HE 1104–1805 (z = 2.31, m B = 16.7 and 18.6, separation = 3.0 arcsec; cf. Wisotzki et al. 1993), with the aim of setting limits on the sizes of the clouds producing the Ly-α, C IV, and Mg II absorption systems. We refer to Smette et al. (1995) for a detailed account of this study.

An automated method to search for metal line absorption systems in low and medium resolution QSO spectra is presented. The method is based on pattern recognition in noisy data: it compares rectified QSO spectra with an input absorption line pattern minimizing X 2 between model and data. The best candidate for a z system is chosen among the minima of the curve x 2=x 2(z) and can be subtracted if weaker systems are to be searched for. A modified version of the X 2 test has been developed in order to compute the probability of finding a system by chance. The method has proved to be successful by detecting 43 metal absorption systems in about 200 low resolution (FWHM≈25A) QSO spectra of the Hamburg-ESO Survey with S/N≈40–50 and emission redshifts 0.33 ≤ zem ≤ 3.06.

The digital revolution in the evaluation of photographic plates and the introduction of automated quasar search techniques have drastically increased the number of known QSOs over the past decade. However, most of these QSOs are so faint that their use is limited to statistical studies. The bright end of the quasar population is still dominated by objects selected in other wavebands, such as radio, X-rays, or even infrared. We have started in 1990 a wide-angle objective-prism survey (the Hamburg/ESO Survey, HES) using the 1 m ESO Schmidt telescope (Reimers 1990). The survey is intended to cover 5000 deg2, of which about a third has been acquired up to now. The prime goal is to compile a large sample of bright (B < 17.5) QSOs suited for detailed follow up studies, in particular for high-resolution spectroscopy. Other objectives are to search for gravitational lens candidates and to directly measure the local luminosity function of quasars. In each Schmidt field, a spectral and a direct plate are scanned with the PDS 1010G microdensitometer at Hamburg, followed by an automated candidate selection and subsequent follow-up spectroscopy with the ESO 1.52 m and 3.6 m telescopes. A novel feature in our survey is the use of an objective-prism with a dispersion of 450 A/mm at Hλ, yielding a seeing-limited spectral resolution of 10-20 A FWHM. A full documentation of the survey techniques is in preparation. First results include the discoveries of the second-brightest QSO in the south (Wisotzki et al. 1991), and of a bright double QSO at high redshift, probably a gravitational lens (Wisotzki et al. 1993). In this contribution I want to show how a wide-angle quasar survey like the HES can benefit from the high resolution of the survey spectra.

We obtained 1.2 Å resolution spectra over the range 3175–7575 Å for the two components of the gravitational lens candidate HE 1104–1805 (z = 2.31, mB = 16.7 and 18.6, separation = 3.0 arcsec; cf. Wisotzki et al. 1993), with the aim of setting limits on the sizes of the clouds producing the Ly-α, C IV, and Mg II absorption systems. We refer to Smette et al. (1995) for a detailed account of this study.