This article reports the third milestones we achieved in September 2022. We shipped the second Spectrograph Module to Subaru Telescope in Hawaii!
PFS utilizes 4 Spectrograph to observe about 2400 celestial objects simultanaously. Spectrograph system is being developed and integrated under the collaboration of Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM), Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, Laboratório Nacional de Astrofísica, and one of our partners Bertin Winlight. Since the first module was shipped, we have been developing the rest of three modules. In particular, in the the last a couple of years, we have been tucking the issue with defocus and tilt in the camera units (see this). After the great efforts for inspection and correction, we managed to pass the pre-ship review of the second spectrograph with visible cameras in September 2022.
Although the shipment took longer than expected, the team consisting of the members from LAM and Kavli IPMU is visiting the Subaru telescope observatory since October 2022 and working on the reintegration and test of the 2nd spectrograph module. Thanks to great supports by the observatory staffs, the integration processes completed smoothly and now post-integration tests are underway.
It is quite impressive to see the two spectrograph modules next to each other in the spectrograph clean room, and we are looking forward to taking data from both spectrograph modules in the upcoming engineering observation runs onward.
