Category Archives: Development

All fiber positioner modules were shipped

      Comments Off on All fiber positioner modules were shipped

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

      Comments Off on Assemble of the first Near-Infrared Camera Unit

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

      No Comments on News about Integration Activity of Prime Focus Instrument

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

      No Comments on News from Integration Work of Fiber Cable

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 »

The first Spectrograph Module was re-assembled at Subaru Telescope

      Comments Off on The first Spectrograph Module was re-assembled at Subaru Telescope

Earlier we reported that one of the PFS instruments, the first Spectrograph Module was shipped to Hawaii Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan in Hawaii (see here). More recently, the module has been transported to Subaru Telescope at the summit of Maunakea, and re-assembled there. PFS Spectrograph Module consists of ten and several assemblies such as camera units, grating assemblies,… Read more »

The first Spectrograph Module is heading to Subaru

      No Comments on The first Spectrograph Module is heading to Subaru

In October 2019, one of the PFS instrument subsystems, the first Spectrograph Module was shipped to Hawaii Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. We obtain about 2400 spectra with four Spectrograph Modules. The Spectrograph Modules are being developed by Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM, France), Johns Hopkins University (the USA), Princeton University (the USA) and Laboratório Nacional de Astrofísica (Brazil). Since… Read more »

2nd On-Telescope Test of Metrology Camera System

      Comments Off on 2nd On-Telescope Test of Metrology Camera System

Last year Metrology Camera System (MCS) was shipped to Subaru Telescope of National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, in Hawaii. After onsite integration and test, we installed MCS to the telescope and carried out optical alignment and on-telescope performance tests in June and October 2018. (See this for details)  MCS is installed to the Cassegrain focus at the bottom of the… Read more »

Second phase of fiber cable integration started in Brazil

      Comments Off on Second phase of fiber cable integration started in Brazil

PFS instrument delivers lights of stars and galaxies from the telescope to our spectrographs by a ~60m-long cable of optical fibers. As we presented in the previous post (https://pfs.ipmu.jp/blog/2017/04/p447), the fiber cables were assembled at the factory of PPC Broadband Inc. in UK. Then the cables were shipped to LNA in Brazil for the next step. If some stress such… Read more »

5 “Cobra Modules” left from California to Taiwan

      Comments Off on 5 “Cobra Modules” left from California to Taiwan

Among the PFS instruments, “Cobra” modules position fibers to galaxies and stars on the Subaru Prime Focal plane. 42 Cobra modules, each of which consists of 57 fibers and its positioners, cover the entire PFS field of view without any inaccessible gaps as shown in Figure 1. Two groups are collaborating to assemble “Cobra Modules”; Brazilian team responsible for fibers,… Read more »

On-telescope Test of the Metrology Camera System

      Comments Off on On-telescope Test of the Metrology Camera System

From 23rd to 25th October 2018, or 4 months after Metrology Camera System (MCS) was tested on Subaru telescope, we have finally carried out 2nd test of MCS on the Subaru telescope. Since we used the telescope at night this time, this is the first engineering run with PFS instrument! MCS is the instrument to measure the positions of the… Read more »