We are excited to report that we had the first light on 22 March 2025!
PFS is the project proceeded under the international collaboration since the kick-off meeting in 2010. A part of our activities have been reported here on the blog. Thanks to great efforts on the collaborating institutes and the partners and the vendors, all the instrument were delivered to Subaru Telescope (National Observatory of Japan) at the summit of Maunakea in Hawaii island by August 2024 (see here). Staffs at Subaru telescope have been maintaining the instruments, with great supports by the collaborating institutes.
We had readiness review for open-use observations last year. As a result, PFS was opened to observation in a risk-shared mode. Then, we have prepared for the first scientific observation — preparation for call for proposal and preparation for observation of accepted programs. We also carried our a couple of engineering runs. We have fixed a few troubles and improved the software packages to process the data.
In March 2025, we had 3-night engineering nights, followed by 13-night science nights (open-use observation). Unfortunately one engineering night was cancelled due to the telescope trouble, but we spend the engineering nights with software development, preparation for science nights and a few tests to monitor and improve the instrument performance.
The science observations went well without severe troubles, thanks to all preparatory work for operation team as well as instrument team. Weather was also good almost all the period as if celebrating our first run.
The science team started their large survey program (SSP: Subaru Strategic Program). Please visit this article for details.
As expected, the first run highlighted some issues. We are going to handle these to achieve stable operation and improve the performance.
