Category Archives: Development

The 1st blue camera cryostat was delivered in Marseille

PFS Project 2018-01-19 No Comments

In January 2018, the visible-blue camera cryostat of the first spectrograph module was shipped from Johns Hopkins University (JHU, the United States of America) to Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM, France). Visible-blue camera at Johns Hopkins University PFS are developing the four identical spectrograph modules, each of which has three channels with visible-blue, visible-red and near-infrared camera units, in order to… Read more »

Joint work for shipping the first positioner module

PFS Project 2017-12-26 No Comments

At California Institute of Technology (Caltech, USA), the fiber positioners “Cobra” are assembled into a module (so-called “Cobra module”) by the teams from Caltech, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Brazil in collaboration. As highlighted in the previous article, the first Cobra module has been assembled, tested and calibrated, so will be shipped soon to Taiwan, where the Cobra modules will… Read more »

The first fiber positioner module was assembled

PFS Project 2017-10-25 No Comments

At the laboratory of California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA, the fiber positioner modules are being assembled by Caltech, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (USA), and Laboratorio Nacional de Astrofisica (Brazil). PFS will develop 42 fiber modules for the observation, and the spare modules. We have been assembling the first module, testing it to control the 57 actuators “Cobra” in the… Read more »

The first things installed at the Subaru telescope is …

PFS Project 2017-10-17 No Comments

The subsystems of the PFS instrument are being developed at various institutes. These subsystems will be delivered to the Subaru telescope in Hawaii from what will be finished integration and test at the laboratory. It is already one year before the first subsystem will be delivered to the Subaru telescope, and start its integration and test there. To operate the… Read more »

Meeting on data analysis software in Princeton

PFS Project 2017-10-11 No Comments

Written by Naoki Yasuda (Kavli IPMU) The galaxies PFS will observe are more than 8 billion light years away and their brightness is less than one to a 10 million of the stars visible to naked eyes. To measure the properties of these faint galaxies accurately, we have to develop data analysis software which can deal with various kinds of noises included in the acquired… Read more »

Subaru renovated a dome floor for the PFS Spectrographs

PFS Project 2017-10-04 No Comments

In July 2017, the Spectrograph Clean Room was finally built up on the fourth floor of the dome building at Subaru Telescope! Spectrograph Clean Room at Subaru Telescope It has been one year and a few month since the previous instrument was cleaned up from the floor, in order to accommodate four PFS spectrographs. Since then, floor has been reinforced,… Read more »

Fiber Cable: Slit Assembly of Spectrograph arrived in Marseille

PFS Project 2017-08-23 No Comments

For the PFS instrument, the lights from about 2400 astronomical objects are designed to be delivered through long fiber cable from the prime focus of the telescope to the spectrograph modules on the fourth floor in the dome building. This fiber cable subsystem, which is about 65m long in total, consists of 3 parts: (1) short cables accommodated into the… Read more »

Joint Work for Spectrograph Development at LAM

PFS Project 2017-07-10 No Comments

At Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM), PFS Spectrograph Module (SM) is fully integrated and its performance is validated. As a part of these processes, two visible-red camera units are being tested; one is for thermal performance test and the other is for optical performance test. From 19th to 29th June, we got together at LAM and dedicated ourselves to joint… Read more »

Assembly of positioner module is in progress / ファイバー配置モジュール組み立て中

PFS Project 2017-06-04 No Comments

PFS instrument catches light from about 2400 astronomical objects using fibers paved on the focal plane at the prime focus of the Subaru telescope, and each fiber is positioned by 2-staged actuator called “Cobra” (). As talked in the previous posts, 57 assemblies of Cobra positioners and fibers are integrated to one module, which is mounted to the optical bench…. Read more »

Prototyping Fiber Cable

PFS Project 2017-04-27 No Comments

In PFS observations, photons from the sky are fed into the optical fibers from one end on the Subaru prime focus, and are emitted out from the other end to feed the spectrograph. The prime focus and spectrograph are physically remote from each other, so the total length of the fibers that optically link them has to be approx. 60… Read more »