A. Cabral, M. Abreu, J. Coelho, P. Santos, A. Oliveira, I. M. Leite, J. Afonso, P. Rees, R. Artan, D. Lee, O. Carrión González, S. Watson, W. Taylor, S. Chittick, I. R. Bryson, I. Guinouard, M. Cirasuolo, P. Spanò
Abstract
MOONS will be the next Multi-Object Optical and Near-infrared Spectrograph for the Very Large Telescope, able to simultaneously observe 1000 targets, feeding a set of optical fibres which can be placed at user-specified locations on the Nasmyth focal plane using individual robotic positioners. The sub-fields thus selected are then driven by the fibres into two identical cryogenic spectrographs mounted on the Nasmyth platform of one of the ESO VLT 8 m telescopes. The instrument will provide both medium and high-resolution spectral coverage across the wavelength range of 0.65 μm to 1.8 μm. In this paper we will describe the manufacturing, integration and tests of the two components that interface with the telescope: the MOONS Field Corrector (FC) and the Rotating Front End (RFE) Assemblies. The FC optics will correct the off-axis aberrations of the telescope, as well as determining the shape of the focal surface and the pupil location. The RFE assembly consists of a rotating part, which will be mounted on the VLT Nasmyth Rotator, and be connected to the two static Spectrographs via fibre assemblies, and all the sub-assemblies that give support to the fibre positioning, metrology and calibration units.
Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy IX
Christopher J. Evans, Julia J. Bryant, Kentaro Motohara
SPIE
Proceedings of the SPIE
Volume 12184
2022 August
