Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2006 · 40 citations · 0 references
Natural SciencesAstronomyPhysicsOptical AstronomyOpticsSpectroscopyAdaptive OpticsInfrared TelescopesNear-infrared AstronomyObservatory InstrumentationOptical InstrumentationTelescope OpticsAdaptive Optics For Infrared TelescopesAdaptive Optics InstrumentationMulti-object SpectroscopyNear-infrared InstrumentationNear-infrared ObservationsOptical Telescope SystemsOptical TelescopesTelescopes
We report on the design and status of the FLAMINGOS-2 instrument - a fully-cryogenic facility near-infrared imager and multi-object spectrograph for the Gemini 8-meter telescopes. FLAMINGOS-2 has a refractive all-spherical optical system providing 0.18-arcsecond pixels and a 6.2-arcminute circular field-of-view on a 2048×2048-pixel HAWAII-2 0.9-2.4 μm detector array. A slit/decker wheel mechanism allows the selection of up to 9 multi-object laser-machined plates or 3 long slits for spectroscopy over a 6×2-arcminute field of view, and selectable grisms provide resolutions from ~1300 to ~3000 over the entire spectrograph bandpass. FLAMINGOS-2 is also compatible with the Gemini Multi- Conjugate Adaptive Optics system, providing multi-object spectroscopic capabilities over a 3×1-arcminute field with high spatial resolution (0.09-arcsec/pixel). We review the designs of optical, mechanical, electronics, software, and On- Instrument WaveFront Sensor subsystems. We also present the current status of the project, currently in final testing in mid-2006.