Progress toward science results with the ACES spectrograph

Robert O. Reynolds; Michael Lloyd-Hart; Michael P. Lesser; Matthew A. Kenworthy; Jian Ge

doi:10.1117/12.461762

7 March 2003 Progress toward science results with the ACES spectrograph

Robert O. Reynolds, Michael Lloyd-Hart, Michael P. Lesser, Matthew A. Kenworthy, Jian Ge

Proceedings Volume 4841, Instrument Design and Performance for Optical/Infrared Ground-based Telescopes; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.461762
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawai'i, United States

Abstract

The use of spectrographs with telescopes having high order adaptive optics (AO) systems offers the possibility of achieving near diffraction-limited spectral resolution on ground-based telescopes, as well as important advantages for instrument design. The small stellar image diameters obtained with adaptively corrected systems allow high resolution without a large loss of light at the spectrograph entrance slit, as well as greater spectral coverage per exposure. The adaptively corrected echelle spectrograph (ACES), designed at Steward Observatory for a spectral resolution R ≈ 200,000, couples the telescope pupil to the instrument with a 10 mm diameter near single-mode optical fiber. Initial observations at the 2.5m telescope on Mt. Wilson validated the concept of achieving high spectral resolution with an adaptively corrected telescope and fiber coupled spectrograph. However the transmission of multiple modes in the fiber lead to a wavelength-dependent variation in illumination that made flat fielding impossible. In this paper we describe instrument design improvements, the installation and testing of a new CCD detector, and testing aimed at understanding and eliminating the fiber-related transmission problems to permit science quality imaging.

Citation Download Citation

Robert O. Reynolds, Michael Lloyd-Hart, Michael P. Lesser, Matthew A. Kenworthy, and Jian Ge "Progress toward science results with the ACES spectrograph", Proc. SPIE 4841, Instrument Design and Performance for Optical/Infrared Ground-based Telescopes, (7 March 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.461762

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