Author Archives: PFS Project

Commissioning of IR detector at JHU

PFS is a spectrometer that disperses light and measures the intensity as a function of wavelength using photosensitive detectors. The operational bandpass for the PFS instrument covers the wavelengths from 380nm to 1260nm. The light delivered to the spectrograph is initially separated into three channels of blue, red, and near-infrared (NIR) by two dichroic mirrors. Each channel is deflected to… Read more »

Spectrograph Integration & Test at LAM

Among the PFS instrument subsystem, four spectrographs are developed under the leadership of LAM (Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille). Since 2015, the first spectrograph module has been integrated and tested for its performance. In this article, we’ll talk about integration and test activities at LAM. Below photo shows the Visible-Red camera unit under assembly: optical components were accommodated in the cryostat… Read more »

Review meeting of infrastructures for controling the PFS instruments

Subaru Telescope and its instrument are, like those at many other observatories, controlled by operator and observer sitting in front of computers at the control room in the building next to the telescope enclosure. In some cases, they are operated even from the National Observatory of Japan in Mitaka, Tokyo. PFS is not a single-component instrument but an integration of… Read more »

Metrology Camera System integration is progressing in Taiwan

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Metrology Camera System to measure the positions of the fibers on the Subaru prime focus is being developed by ASIAA (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics) , in Taiwan. After the success of the critical design review in 2015, the parts production and system integration are progressing, and all the mechanical parts have been manufactured. The photo below shows some of them…. Read more »

Installation of Spectrographs Clean Room Crane

The integration of the Spectrographs Clean Room has been progressing at the Subaru Telescope observatory since last May, when the floor of the dome building was cleaned up. Recently, a crane has been installed to the ceiling structure of the spectrograph floor. This 500kg-capacity crane will be used to carry the individual components and sub-assemblies of the spectrograph module such… Read more »

First light at lab.!

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The PFS Spectrographs  are integrated and validated their performances at Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM), France. At present, the first spectroraph module is being assembled,  tested for the performance of individual parts. Last month, we had the First Light of the visible-red camera in the laboratory. The below is the first light image, in which you can see many spectra… Read more »

8th PFS Collaborations Meeting

We are pleased to report the 8th PFS Collaborations meeting at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Baltimore, USA, from 12th to 16th December 2016, with about 80 participants from various PFS institutions. During the week, we had 2-day all-hands session, where we shared progress reports in the instrument development and survey planning study after the last collaboration meeting, and discussed plans and… Read more »

From the development site of Prime Focus Instrument

Let us start with a question this time: What do you think these parts are used for? There are a number of holes… They are some of the parts for Prime Focus Instrument (PFI) named as the “Cobra bench” and the “rails”, on which the fiber positioning actuators Cobra are installed (Here for details). As a picture below, one actuator… Read more »

Software collaboration meeting

PFS software collaboration meeting was held at Princeton University (USA) on 5th and 6th September. About 30 people — not only PFS members for software development, but also several staffs and software engineers from the Subaru Telescope observatory to which PFS will be delivered, and those from National Astronomical Observatory of Japan working on the database system — got together… Read more »