The Brazilian Tunable Filter Imager for the SOAR Telescope

Autor(es):Mostrar menos -

de Oliveira, Claudia Mendes ^[1] ; Taylor, Keith ^[1] ; Quint, Bruno ^[1] ; Andrade, Denis ^[2] ; Ferrari, Fabricio ^[3] ; Laporte, Rene ^[4] ; Ramos, Giseli de A. ^[5] ; Dani Guzman, Christian ^[6] ; Cavalcanti, Luiz ^[2] ; de Calasans, Alvaro ^[7] ; Fernandez, Javier Ramirez ^[2] ; Gutierrez Castaneda, Edna Carolina ^[1] ; Jones, Damien ^[8] ; Fontes, Fernando Luis ^[9] ; Molina, Ana Maria ^[1] ; Fialho, Fabio ^[2] ; Plana, Henri ^[10] ; Jablonski, Francisco J. ^[4] ; Reitano, Luiz ^[4] ; Daigle, Olivier ^[11] ; Scarano, Jr., Sergio ^[12] ; Amram, Philippe ^[13] ; Balard, Philippe ^[13] ; Gach, Jean-Luc ^[13] ; Carignan, Claude ^{[14, 15]}

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^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Dept Astron, Inst Astron Geofis & Ciencias Atmosfer, BR-05508090 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[2] Univ Sao Paulo, Escola Politecn, BR-05508010 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[3] Fundacao Univ Fed Rio Grande, Inst Matemat Estat & Fis, BR-96201900 Rio Grande, RS - Brazil

^[4] Inst Nacl Pesquisas Espaciais MCT, BR-12227010 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[5] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Matemat & Estat, BR-05508090 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[6] Pontificia Univ Catolica Chile, Dept Engn Eletr, Santiago 22 - Chile

^[7] Univ Sao Paulo, Inst Fis, BR-05314970 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[8] Prime Opt, Eumundi, Qld 4562 - Australia

^[9] Univ Paulista Unip, BR-12240420 Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[10] Univ Estadual Santa Cruz, Lab Astrofis Teor & Observac, BR-45650000 Ilheus, BA - Brazil

^[11] Nuvu Cameras, Montreal, PQ - Canada

^[12] Southern Astrophys Res Telescope SOAR, La Serena - Chile

^[13] Univ Provence, CNRS, Lab Astrophys Marseille, F-13388 Marseille 13 - France

^[14] Univ Montreal, Dept Phys, Montreal, PQ H3C 3J7 - Canada

^[15] Univ Montreal, Lab Astrophys Expt, Observ Mt Megant, Montreal, PQ H3C 3J7 - Canada

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific; v. 125, n. 926, p. 396-408, APR 2013.
• Citações Web of Science: 7

Resumo

This article presents a description of a new Tunable Filter Instrument for the SOAR telescope. The Brazilian Tunable Filter Imager (BTFI) is a highly versatile new technology to be used both in seeing-limited mode and at higher spatial fidelity using the SAM Ground-Layer Adaptive Optics facility (SOAR Adaptive Module) which is being deployed at the SOAR telescope. Such an instrument presents important new science capabilities for the SOAR astronomical community, from studies of the centers of nearby galaxies and the insterstellar medium to statistical cosmological investigations. The BTFI concept takes advantage of three new technologies. The imaging Bragg Tunable Filter (iBTF) concept utilizes Volume Phase Holographic Gratings in a double-pass configuration as a tunable filter, while a new Fabry-Perot (FP) concept involves the use of commercially available technologies which allow a single FP etalon to act over a very large range of interference orders and hence spectral resolutions. Both of these filter technologies will be used in the same instrument. The combination allows for highly versatile capabilities. Spectral resolutions spanning the range between 25 and 30,000 can be achieved in the same instrument through the use of iBTF at low resolution and scanning FPs beyond R similar to 2; 000 with some overlap in the mid-range. The third component of the new technologies deployed in BTFI is the use of EMCCDs, which allow for rapid and cyclical wavelength scanning thus mitigating the damaging effect of atmospheric variability through the acquisition of the data cube. An additional important feature of the instrument is that it has two optical channels which allow for the simultaneous recording of the narrow-band, filtered image with the remaining (complementary) broadband light. This avoids the otherwise inevitable uncertainties inherent in tunable filter imaging using a single detector, which is subject to temporal variability of the atmospheric conditions. The system was designed to supply tunable filter imaging with a field-of-view of 3' on a side, sampled at 0.12 `' for direct Nasmyth seeing-limited area spectroscopy and for SAM's visitor instrument port for GLAO-fed area spectroscopy. The instrument has seen first light, mounted on the SOAR telescope, as a visitor instrument. It is now in commissioning phase. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 08/57807-5 - Instituto Nacional Avançado de Astrofísica
• Beneficiário: João Evangelista Steiner
• Linha de fomento: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Temático
• Processo FAPESP: 06/56213-9 - Nova física no espaço: formação e evolução de estruturas no universo
• Beneficiário: Claudia Lucia Mendes de Oliveira
• Linha de fomento: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Temático