Category Archives: Development

The first fiber cable unit has been installed on Subaru telescope

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We PFS project passed two big milestones recently. We will talk about them in this post and the next. The fist milestone is the first fiber cable unit, which was delivered to Hawaii Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan in the end of the last year, has been installed on Subaru telescope at last! We observe about 2400 spectra of… Read more »

The first fiber cable unit has arrived in Hawaii!

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Time flies — there are only a few days left in 2020. The last post of this year is about a very exciting news! The first unit of the fiber cable system has been delivered from Laboratório Nacional de Astrofísica (LNA), Brazil, to Hawaii Observatory of National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) in Hawaii, the USA. PFS is the fiber… Read more »

Final assembly of the fiber cables in the Prime Focus Instrument is progressing

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Having only a month or so left in 2020, the integration of the Prime Focus Instrument (PFS) is progressing in Taiwan. The integration and test of the PFI system are being carried out by ASIAA (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics) and their partner institute ASRD of CSIST (Aeronautical Systems Research Division of Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology). Back in… Read more »

SpS development is progressing

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This post shows recent activities for the development of the PFS Spectrograph modules. PFS project develops 4 identical Spectrograph Modules to obtain 2400 spectra in a singe exposure. Integration of the second and third Spectrograph Modules are on-going at Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM) in France. As shown in the previous post, almost all units and assemblies had been delivered… Read more »

Calibration lamp system was delivered to Taiwan

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The PFS project researches astronomical objects taking their spectra. Spectrograph modules take spectral images of our targets, and “(Wavelength) calibration lamp” is essential to process the raw images and get the spectra. Recently, Princeton University completed the assembly and test of the calibration lamp system, and shipped it to Taiwan. PFS develops 4 spectrograph modules to obtain about 2400 spectra… Read more »

Optics for the 3rd Spectrograph Module were delivered.

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We have a news from Marseilles in France in the middle of summer. PFS uses 4 identical spectrograph modules to obtain about 2400 spectra from astronomical objects. Development of the spectrograph modules are led by Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM), and production of the optical systems such as lenses are going on by their partner, Winlight.Two sets of the PFS… Read more »

All fiber positioner modules were shipped

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It was April 2018 that the first fiber module was shipped from Caltech, US to Taiwan. Two years later, now we have completed delivering all the modules to Taiwan. PFS is an instrument to observe celestial objects using optical fibers. Actuators nicknamed “Cobras” are used to position fibers to the targets, and “Cobra” modules consisting of the “Cobras” and fibers… Read more »

Assemble of the first Near-Infrared Camera Unit

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The topic of this post is the development of the Near-Infrared Camera Units at Johns Hopkins University. Each Spectrograph module of the PFS project equips three cameras — visible-blue, visible-red and near-infrared — to take spectra whose wavelength ranges from 380 nm to 1260 nm with a single shot. Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and Princeton University (PU) in the United… Read more »

News about Integration Activity of Prime Focus Instrument

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PFS instruments are being developed all over the world. In this post, we are featuring the integration activities of Prime Focus Instrument in Taiwan. Prime Focus Instrument (PFI) is the instrument literally installed to the prime focus of the Subaru Telescope, and consists of fiber positioner modules, guiding cameras and so on. Each fiber is attached with 2-axis actuator named… Read more »

News from Integration Work of Fiber Cable

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A few month ago, we reported that we had entered on the second phase of the fiber cable integration (see this). This time we are going to show news since then. PFS catches the light of stars and galaxies by fibers installed on the prime focal plane at the top of Subaru Telescope, and obtains their spectra with the spectrograph… Read more »