Tag Archives: Subaru

The last two Spectrograph modules have come!

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We achieved a big milestone in November 2023. Finally, the four spectrograph modules have been installed at Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, in Hawaii!! PFS project has been developing four spectrograph modules to observe about 2400 spectra at the same time. The spectrograph modules are being developed by Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM), Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Princeton… Read more »

Two spectrograph modules are now equipped with full channels

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Development of spectrograph modules has been in progress to complete PFS instrument. Spectrograph modules are being developed by Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Princeton University, Brazilian consortium in collaboration with Bertin Winlight. Although there have been many issues found during integration and test, we the team has been discussing one by one and solve them, to complete… Read more »

Installation of the PFS fiber cable was completed!

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We achieved one milestone in early June 2023. The installation of all the fiber cables has been completed finally! Among the PFS instruments, the fiber cable system, which consists of about 2400 optical fibers, delivers the light from the prime focus of the Subaru telescope to the Spectrograph Modules. The fiber cables are assembled into four units, each of which… Read more »

The first Near-Infrared camera was installed at Subaru telescope

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A new milestone for PFS was reached in late March 2023 when the first Near-Infrared (NIR) camera was successfully delivered from Johns Hopkins University and installed at Subaru telescope. As its name suggests, this camera covers the NIR spectral band of the spectrographs (940-1260nm), in addition to the blue and red cameras. In total 4 NIR cameras will be delivered… Read more »

The third fiber cable was installed on Subaru Telescope

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Time flies: it has been a few months since the last article. In the last a few months, the integration of the PFS Spectrograph Modules (SMs) and cameras has been proceeding at LAM and JHU. At Subaru Telescope, the second SM (SM3) experienced the first light in the engineering run in November 2022 just after shipping. However, the two successive… Read more »

Second Spectrograph Module was delivered to Subaru Telescope

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This article reports the third milestones we achieved in September 2022. We shipped the second Spectrograph Module to Subaru Telescope in Hawaii! PFS utilizes 4 Spectrograph to observe about 2400 celestial objects simultanaously. Spectrograph system is being developed and integrated under the collaboration of Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM), Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, Laboratório Nacional de Astrofísica, and one… Read more »

The second fiber cable system is now on the Subaru telescope!

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As we reported in the previous article, the second fiber cable system was standing by in Hilo, Hawaii, for its installation to the Subaru telescope. Thanks to the schedule arrangement by the observatory, we had a 2-week slot in April to install and test the second fiber cable system. We are going to report the installation and test activities in… Read more »

Engineering Observation in November 2021

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Two months after on-telescope test by integrating subsystems, we had another engineering observation (engineering run) on three nights in November 2021. In this article, we’re going to tell a story about our work around the engineering nights. Although we made big progresses in fiber configuration etc. during the September run, we also found a couple of major issues on Prime… Read more »

Prime Focus Instrument has arrived at Subaru Telescope

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Time flies and a half of 2021 has already passed. Earlier this year, the first fiber cable unit and the miniature telescope for night sky study “SuNSS” was installed on Subaru telescope. In this article, we report a big news of our project. Finally the Prime Focus Instrument has delivered from Taiwan to Subaru Telescope in June 2021!! Prime Focus… Read more »

PFS spectrograph observed sky spectra!

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As shown in the last article, the first fiber cable unit was installed on the Subaru telescope. In fact, in the same period, we have installed another instrument — a miniature telescope called “SuNSS” to study sky spectra at Mt. Maunakea. Since night-sky emission originates from the atmosphere, any spectra observed by ground-based telescopes contain sky component as a noise…. Read more »