Performance of the FLAMINGOS near-IR multi-object spectrometer and imager and plans for FLAMINGOS-2: a fully cryogenic near-IR MOS for Gemini South

Richard Elston; Steven N. Raines; Kevin T. Hanna; David B. Hon; Jeffrey Julian; Matthew Horrobin; Charles F. W. Harmer; Harland W. Epps

doi:10.1117/12.459937

7 March 2003 Performance of the FLAMINGOS near-IR multi-object spectrometer and imager and plans for FLAMINGOS-2: a fully cryogenic near-IR MOS for Gemini South

Richard Elston, Steven N. Raines, Kevin T. Hanna, David B. Hon, Jeffrey Julian, Matthew Horrobin, Charles F. W. Harmer, Harland W. Epps

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 4841, Instrument Design and Performance for Optical/Infrared Ground-based Telescopes; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.459937
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawai'i, United States

Abstract

We report on the performance of FLAMINGOS, the world's first fully cryogenic near-IR multi-object spectrometer. FLAMINGOS has a fast all refractive optical system, which can be used at telescopes slower than f/7.5. This makes FLAMINGOS a very efficient wide-field imager when used on fast small aperture telescopes and a high AW spectrometer using laser machined aperture masks for MOS spectroscopy. FLAMINGOS uses a 2048x2048 HgCdTe HAWAII-2 array by the Rockwell Science Center. The array is readout through 32 amplifiers, which results in low overheads for observations. We describe both the operating characteristics of the HAWAII-2 array and of the array controller and data acquisition system. FLAMINGOS has been in operation for about 1.5 years and is now in routine use on four telescopes: The Kitt Peak 4-m and 2.1-m, The 6.5-m MMT and the 8-m Gemini South Telescope. We will describe the operating characteristics of FLAMINGOS on each of these telescopes that deliver fields-of-view from 21x21 arcminutes to 2.7x2.7 arcminutes and pixels from 0.6 arcseconds to 0.08 arcseconds. While providing a large AW product for fast telescopes (i.e. f/8), FLAMINGOS becomes progressively less efficient on slower telescopes. Since nearly all large telescopes have fairly slow optical systems (f/12 or slower) the combination of large aperture and slow optical systems makes FLAMINGOS ill suited for optimal performance on current large aperture telescopes. Thus, we are beginning construction of FLAMINGOS-2, which will be optimized for performance on the f/16 Gemini South 8-m telescope. Similar to FLAMINGOS, FLAMINGOS-2 will be fully refractive using grisms, laser machined aperture masks and a 2048x2048 HgCdTe HAWAII-2 array. FLAMINGOS-2 will provide a 6.1 arcminute field-of-view with 0.18 arcsecond pixels. FLAMINGOS-2 will also be designed to except an f/32 beam from the Gemini South MCAO system.

Citation Download Citation

Richard Elston, Steven N. Raines, Kevin T. Hanna, David B. Hon, Jeffrey Julian, Matthew Horrobin, Charles F. W. Harmer, and Harland W. Epps "Performance of the FLAMINGOS near-IR multi-object spectrometer and imager and plans for FLAMINGOS-2: a fully cryogenic near-IR MOS for Gemini South", Proc. SPIE 4841, Instrument Design and Performance for Optical/Infrared Ground-based Telescopes, (7 March 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.459937

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