The Dark Energy Survey: More Than Just Dark Energy

The Dark Energy Survey is looking at 5000 square degrees of sky in the southern hemisphere for 525 nights in an attempt to understand mysterious Dark Energy. But that's not all the collaboration is doing.
Members of the Dark Energy Survey are using their time on the Blanco 4m telescope in Chile to maximum benefit. The data obtained by looking at a large area of the sky for hundreds of nights trying to understand what dark energy might be can be quite useful in helping astronomers understand other phenomena in the sky.
In this hangout, we will learn about what the Dark Energy Survey is doing and we'll discuss two papers: DECam followup observations of the LIGO gravitational wave event GW150914, the first observations of a merging black hole binary and the characteristics of Eridanus II, an ultra-dwarf satellite galaxy of our Milky Way, one of 20 or so discovered by DES.
Please join Tony Darnell, Dr. Carol Christian, Dr Jim Annis (FermiLab), Dr. Ting Li (Fermilab), and Dr. Marcelle Soares Santos (Fermilab) as we dive into the realm and data for the amazing Dark Energy Survey.
Papers Discussed today:
DECam Followup Obs of GW150914:
Farthest Neighbor: The Distant Milky Way Satellite Eridanus II:
Watch the LIGO Gravitational Wave Hangout Here: