TY - JOUR
T1 - Design drivers for a wide-field multi-object spectrograph for the William Herschel Telescope
AU - Balcells, M.
AU - Benn, C.
AU - Carter, D.
AU - Dalton, G.
AU - Trager, S.C.
AU - Feltzing, S.
AU - Verheijen, M.A.W.
AU - Jarvis, M.J.
AU - Percival, W.
AU - Abrams, D.C.
AU - Agocs, T.
AU - Brown, A.G.A.
AU - Cano, D.
AU - Evans, C.R.
AU - Helmi, A.
AU - Lewis, I.J.
AU - McLure, R.J.
AU - Peletier, R.F.
AU - Perez-Fournon, I.
AU - Sharples, R.
AU - Tosh, I.A.J.
AU - Trujillo, I.
AU - Walton, N.A.
AU - Westfall, K.B.
N1 - Original article can be found at: http://spiedigitallibrary.aip.org/browse/vol_range.jsp. COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only. [Full text of this paper is not available in the UHRA]
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Wide-field multi-object spectroscopy is a high priority for European astronomy over the next decade. Most 8-10m telescopes have a small field of view, making 4-m class telescopes a particularly attractive option for wide-field instruments. We present a science case and design drivers for a wide-field multi-object spectrograph (MOS) with integral field units for the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma. The instrument intends to take advantage of a future prime-focus corrector and atmospheric-dispersion corrector (Agocs et al, this conf.) that will deliver a field of view 2 deg in diameter, with good throughput from 370 to 1,000 nm. The science programs cluster into three groups needing three different resolving powers R: (1) high-precision radial-velocities for Gaia-related Milky Way dynamics, cosmological redshift surveys, and galaxy evolution studies (R = 5,000), (2) galaxy disk velocity dispersions (R = 10,000) and (3) high-precision stellar element abundances for Milky Way archaeology (R = 20,000). The multiplex requirements of the different science cases range from a few hundred to a few thousand, and a range of fibre-positioner technologies are considered. Several options for the spectrograph are discussed, building in part on published design studies for E-ELT spectrographs. Indeed, a WHT MOS will not only efficiently deliver data for exploitation of important imaging surveys planned for the coming decade, but will also serve as a test-bed to optimize the design of MOS instruments for the future E-ELT.
AB - Wide-field multi-object spectroscopy is a high priority for European astronomy over the next decade. Most 8-10m telescopes have a small field of view, making 4-m class telescopes a particularly attractive option for wide-field instruments. We present a science case and design drivers for a wide-field multi-object spectrograph (MOS) with integral field units for the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma. The instrument intends to take advantage of a future prime-focus corrector and atmospheric-dispersion corrector (Agocs et al, this conf.) that will deliver a field of view 2 deg in diameter, with good throughput from 370 to 1,000 nm. The science programs cluster into three groups needing three different resolving powers R: (1) high-precision radial-velocities for Gaia-related Milky Way dynamics, cosmological redshift surveys, and galaxy evolution studies (R = 5,000), (2) galaxy disk velocity dispersions (R = 10,000) and (3) high-precision stellar element abundances for Milky Way archaeology (R = 20,000). The multiplex requirements of the different science cases range from a few hundred to a few thousand, and a range of fibre-positioner technologies are considered. Several options for the spectrograph are discussed, building in part on published design studies for E-ELT spectrographs. Indeed, a WHT MOS will not only efficiently deliver data for exploitation of important imaging surveys planned for the coming decade, but will also serve as a test-bed to optimize the design of MOS instruments for the future E-ELT.
U2 - 10.1117/12.856947
DO - 10.1117/12.856947
M3 - Article
SN - 1996-756x
VL - 7735
JO - Proceedings of the SPIE
JF - Proceedings of the SPIE
M1 - 77357G
ER -