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 »
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 »
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 »
Among the PFS instrument subsystems, Prime Focus Instrument (PFI) is the one that is installed to the prime focus of the Subaru telescope. PFI accommodates various key components such as 2400 fibers and actuators to be configured onto astronomical objects, and cameras to guide the telescope and lock the instrument field of view to a target area of sky. PFI… Read more »
The PFS spectrograph system, consisting of four identical modules, will be accommodated in a designated clean room on the fourth floor of the Subaru telescope enclosure building. Envisioning the delivery of the first modules in 2017, we have been developing the design and implementation plan of the floor and clean room. After we had a design review meeting in August… Read more »
From 26 June to 1 July, there was a conference titled “SPIE Astronomical telescopes and instrumentation” in Edinburgh, UK. This is a pretty big international event organized every two years where engineers and scientists from many countries over the world get together to report and discuss activities and progress against challenges in projects, research, and development of various sizes and… Read more »
The PFS project was introduced on a Japanese newspaper “Nikkei” on 11 May 2016 (Here: only in Japanese). In the article, Masahiro Takada (the HSC science working group chair & PFS project scientist) and Naoyuki Tamura (PFS project manager) describe the SuMIRe project (the ongoing Hyper SUprime-Cam survey and the Prime Focus Spectrograph project), the scientific goal, and the nature/challenge… Read more »
Written by Shiang-Yu Wang (ASIAA, Taiwan) One of the PFS subsystems called Prime Focus Instrument (PFI), which will be installed to the prime focus at the Subaru telescope, comprises of a lot of different modules such as ~2400 fibers and their positioners, 6 cameras for acquisition and guide of a targeted sky field. These modules will be assembled at various… Read more »
PFS will accurately position 2400 fibers to stars and galaxies on the sky in the field of view of about 1.3 degree diameter and deliver spectra for such a large number of objects at one exposure. The key component of this fiber positioning process is the actuator named “Cobra”. In the previous article, we described our testing activities to characterize… Read more »
From David Le Mignant (LAM) As of early 2016, several PFS spectrograph activities are on-going in parallel in France, led by Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM) with the support from the other PFS members. Among them, two major items are: 1) the thermal validation for the Visible Camera Unit: Since last year we have been undertaking this validation process (https://pfs.ipmu.jp/blog/2015/11/p124)…. Read more »
We will observe ~2400 objects using four identical spectrograph modules, each of which acquires ~600 spectra of astronomical sources and calibration sources. Each module covers wide wavelength range on visible and near-infrared band (380 — 1260 nm). To achieve this, the module has 3 camera units; visible-blue, visible-red and near-infrared. The light of each band is introduced by using two “dichiroic mirrors”, which split the light at a given wavelength.
PFSでは約2400個の天体を観測しますが、4つの同型の分光器を用いてそれぞれ600本のスペクトルを取得します。各分光器は可視光域から近赤外域までの広い波長範囲 (380 から1260 nm) をカバーする為、「可視光域青用」、「可視光域赤用」、「近赤外域用」の3つのカメラユニットを持っています。3つのカメラには、特定の波長で光を分けることのできるダイクロイックミラーを2つ用いて、光を導入します。
To measure the fibers position on the focal plane, “Metrology Camera System” is attached on the Cassegrain focus of Subaru telescope. Looking up to the prime focus (see this image from HSC blog for clear image), this camera takes a image of back-illuminated fibers. Thanks to a large format of ~50 M pixels CMOS sensor, this camera can acquire all ~2400 fiber spots in a single exposure. The camera system is also designed to execute the process from exposure to measurement of fiber centroids within 5 seconds. Effective measurement of the fibers position enables us to shorten overhead for fiber configuration and execute large statistical survey observation.
The Metrology Camera System will be delivered to Subaru in early 2018.
焦点面上のファイバーの位置を測定する為に、『メトロロジカメラシステム』をすばる望遠鏡のカセグレン焦点に取り付けます。このカメラは焦点面を見上げるようにして後ろ側から照らされたファイバーの画像を取得します(イメージ的にはこちらの画像 (HSCブログより) のような感じです)。メトロロジカメラには50Mピクセルの大判のCMOSセンサが搭載されているため、約2400本のファイバー像をたった一回の露出で得ることができます。また、画像の取得から各ファイバーの位置測定までを5秒以内に行うように設計されています。このようにファイバーの効率よく位置を測定することで、ファイバーの配置など観測準備にかかる時間をなるべく短くし、大規模サーベイ観測を行うことができるのです。
メトロロジカメラシステムは2018年4月にすばる望遠鏡へ搬送されるました。
The Spectrograph Clean Room is a room whose size is 6.7 m wide, 8.6 m long ,and 3.6 m high. Four PFS spectrographs will be accommodated in the clean room. To stabilize the spectrograph performance, the temperature in the room will be controlled at 5 +- 1 degree Celsius. Besides, a crane with capability of 500 kg is installed for assembly and maintenance of the Spectrograph.
分光器設置室は、すばる望遠鏡ドーム棟4階に建設された部屋で、幅6.7m × 奥行8.6m × 高さ 3.6 mの大きさです。 PFSの4台の分光器がこの部屋に設置されます。分光器の安定性を図るために、部屋全体が5±1℃の範囲で温度管理されます。また、分光器の設置やメンテナンス用に室内には耐荷重500kgのクレーンが設置されています。
