Author Archives: PFS Project

Obituary: Hiroshige Yoshida

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Dr. Hiroshige Yoshida, a software engineer at Subaru Telescope, passed away on 12 November 2024 because of disease. Dr. Yoshida was a skillful software engineer and joined the PFS project in 2017. Soon after joining PFS, he discussed actively with colleagues at regular meeting and other places. He developed temperature control system for PFS Spectrograph Clean Room, and control software… Read more »

Spectrograph System was fully integrated!

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We have a huge, exciting news. Finally, all 12 Spectrograph cameras are integrated at Subaru Telescope now! PFS Spectrograph was developed by Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM, France), Johns Hopkins University (JHU, USA), Brazilian Consortium, Kavli iPMU (Japan) in collaboration with Bertin Winlight. Utilizing 4 identical modules, we observe approximately 2400 spectra in a single shot. Each module has three… Read more »

Readiness review for open-use was held

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PFS project had a very important meeting on 9th and 10th July 2024 (HST); the readiness review meeting to start open use in the S25A semester of Subaru Telescope. Programs for S25A, which starts from 2025 February, are called a half year beforehand, namely, 2024 August. Envisioning the call-for in one month, we had a meeting to review the PFS… Read more »

The forth near infrared camera was installed.

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Time flies; it’s already a half of 2024 was over. In this article we are goin to report that we have achieved a milestone in the middle of June. The PFS instrument obtains about 2400 spectra using 4 spectrograph modules. Each module has three cameras; blue, red and near-infrared. Among of them, the near-infrared cameras have been developed at Johns… Read more »

What PFS is doing recently?

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It’s been a while since the last article, so we are going to report our activities last month. We all, both scientists and developers, were pretty busy last month. Firstly, we had two engineering observations in May 2024.The PFS project is in the final phase of development, aiming to start the scientific operation in the 2025A semester (i.e., February 2025),… Read more »

To improve the instrument performance 2

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Before the engineering observation in March 2024, we PFS project carried out two major modification works at Subaru telescope. One of them is realignment of Metrology Camera System. “Metrology Camera System (MCS)” is the instrument installed on Cassegrain focus of Subaru telescope, and namely measures the fibers position on the prime focus plane. In fact, there was an accident during… Read more »

Engineering observation was carried out

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We had an engineering observation from 8th to 17th March 2024, several month after the previous observation. We carried out the on-telescope test in December 2023 to take calibration data, but this was the first time to “observe” celestial objects with four Spectrograph Modules. In fact, there were a couple major updates before this engineering observation, and we’ll show them… Read more »

Prof. Takada won Hayashi Chushiro Prize

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Prof. Masahiro Takada (Kavli IPMU), the PFS Primary Scientist, won Hayashi Chushiro Prize in 2023. Hayashi Chushiro Prize of Astronomical Society of Japan (ASJ) was established based on donation by Dr. Chushiro Hayashi (emeritus professor of Kyoto University at that time), when he was awarded for the 11th Kyoto Prize in 1995 [1]. He donated to ASJ encouraging younger researchers… Read more »

On-telescope test with four Spectrograph

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About one month has already passed since (western) new year. PFS project is keeping the efforts on development in this year to complete the instrument and start scientific operation. In the end of 2023, the four spectrograph modules were finally integrated at Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), except for one near-infrared camera. After it, we carried out… Read more »

The last two Spectrograph modules have come!

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We achieved a big milestone in November 2023. Finally, the four spectrograph modules have been installed at Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, in Hawaii!! PFS project has been developing four spectrograph modules to observe about 2400 spectra at the same time. The spectrograph modules are being developed by Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM), Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Princeton… Read more »