VIRUS: production and deployment of a massively replicated fiber integral field spectrograph for the upgraded Hobby-Eberly Telescope
Gary J. Hill, Sarah E. Tuttle, Niv Drory, Hanshin Lee, Brian L. Vattiat, D. L. DePoy, J. L. Marshall, Andreas Kelz, Dionne Haynes, Maximilian H. Fabricius, Karl Gebhardt, Richard D. Allen
(+22 others)
2014
Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy V
The Visible Integral-field Replicable Unit Spectrograph (VIRUS) consists of a baseline build of 150 identical spectrographs (arrayed as 75 unit pairs) fed by 33,600 fibers, each 1.5 arcsec diameter, at the focus of the upgraded 10 m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET). VIRUS has a fixed bandpass of 350-550 nm and resolving power R~700. VIRUS is the first example of industrial-scale replication applied to optical astronomy and is capable of surveying large areas of sky, spectrally. The VIRUS concept
more »
... ers significant savings of engineering effort, cost, and schedule when compared to traditional instruments. The main motivator for VIRUS is to map the evolution of dark energy for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX ‡ ), using 0.8M Lyman-α emitting galaxies as tracers. The full VIRUS array is due to be * The Hobby -Eberly Telescope is operated by McDonald Observatory on behalf Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 07/24/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms deployed starting at the end of 2014 and will provide a powerful new facility instrument for the HET, well suited to the survey niche of the telescope, and will open up large area surveys of the emission line universe for the first time. VIRUS is in full production, and we are about half way through. We review the production design, lessons learned in reaching volume production, and preparation for deployment of this massive instrument. We also discuss the application of the replicated spectrograph concept to next generation instrumentation on ELTs. Enclosures Tracker Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9147 91470Q-2 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 07/24/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9147 91470Q-3 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 07/24/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9147 91470Q-4 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 07/24/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms ! Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9147 91470Q-6 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 07/24/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9147 91470Q-7 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 07/24/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9147 91470Q-8 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 07/24/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms * Laser spot imaged with field flattener: front and back surface using interference pattern ! omplete ember a" b" c" e" d" f" VCS Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9147 91470Q-20 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 07/24/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9147 91470Q-24 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 07/24/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms
doi:10.1117/12.2056911
fatcat:kerde2zigjbezppszmlnxmuzz4
