Some highlights of high spectral resolution observations with large telescopes are presented. The focus is one the chemical composition of disk, halo, bulge, and local group objects. Examples are given of progress on the study of brown dwarfs. Several recent papers on the composition of cool stars in open clusters are summarized. Faint field stars in the Galactic halo have provided fertile ground for new research on the chemical history of the halo; some recent results are discussed. Individual stars in globular clusters from the turn-off to the top of the red giant branch have yielded new insights into stellar evolution and processes which occur in the interiors of these old stars. The echelle spectrum of a main sequence star in the Galactic bulge with V equals 19.8 has been obtained because of the effects microlensing on it. For the first time the composition of individual stars in several galaxies in our local group has been determined; this represents an important extension to our understanding of the chemical makeup to the universe.

Date Published: 29 June 2000
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 4005, Discoveries and Research Prospects from 8- to 10-Meter-Class Telescopes, (29 June 2000); doi: 10.1117/12.390157

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4005:
Discoveries and Research Prospects from 8- to 10-Meter-Class Telescopes
Jacqueline Bergeron, Editor(s)