Updates on Development of Metrology Camera System

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“Metrology Camera System” is one of the PFS instrument subsystems under development by ASIAA (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taiwan). This is a small telescope system installed onto the Cassegrain Focus at the bottom of the Subaru telescope to look up the Prime focus, take the image of approximately 2400 back-illuminated fiber spots in one exposure with the large… Read more »

The 1st blue camera cryostat was delivered in Marseille

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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

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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 »

9th PFS Collaboration Meeting

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From 27 November to 1 December 2017 was held the 9th PFS collaboration meeting at Kavli IPMU, the University of Tokyo, in Kashiwa city, Japan. More and more participants have joined to the meeting, and this year about 130 collaborators gathered to the meeting. On 28 and 29 November, we had the joint sessions and shared the project updates. The… Read more »

The first fiber positioner module was assembled

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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 …

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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

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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

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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 »

PFS science working group meeting at MPA

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The PFS Science Team is now planning a large survey observation of the Universe using PFS. Three working groups have been discussing the plans to achieve their major scientific objectives: “Cosmology” research group to reveal the nature of dark matter, dark energy and neutrinos, “Galactic archeology” research group to reconstruct the history of the Milky Way Galaxy where we exist,… Read more »

Fiber Cable: Slit Assembly of Spectrograph arrived in Marseille

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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 »