Principal Investigator: Ian McLean (UCLA)
Reference:
The Design and Development of NIRSPEC: A Near-Infrared Echelle Spectrograph
for the Keck II Telescope, Ian S. McLean et al., SPIE
vol. 3354, pp. 566-578.
The Near Infrared Spectrometer (NIRSPEC), a cryogenic cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph, features spectroscopy over the 0.96-5.5 micron range at resolutions of R=2000 or 25,000. The slit-viewing camera provides additional capability to image fields in a 46"-square field from 1-2.5 microns. The software interface includes planning tools for users to prepare observational setups and exposure sequences.
| Slit-viewing Camera (SCAM) | |
| Detector | Rockwell HgCdTe 256x256 |
| Plate Scale | 0.18"/pixel |
| Gain | 4 e-/ADU |
| Read Noise | 10 e- |
| Linear Limit | 120,000 e- (30,000 ADU) |
| Field of View | 46" square field |
| Wavelength Sensitivity | 0.95 - 2.5 microns |
| Spectrograph (SPEC) | |
| Detector | ALADDIN-3 InSb 1024x1024, 27 micron pixels |
| Gain | 5 e-/ADU |
| Read Noise | 25 e- |
| Dark Current | 0.2 e-/s/pixel |
| Linear Limit | 90,000 e- (18,000 ADU) |
| Charge Persistence | >5,000 ADU |
| Wavelength Sensitivity | 0.95 - 5.5 microns |
L-Prime 3.420-4.120
M-Prime 4.570-4.810
KL 2.134-4.228
HeI 1.078-1.088
Pa-Beta 1.276-1.289
H2 2.110-2.129
FeII 1.639-1.654
M-Wide 4.420-5.530
Nirspec-1 0.947-1.121
Nirspec-2 1.089-1.293
Nirspec-3 (J) 1.143-1.375
Nirspec-4 1.241-1.593
Nirspec-5 (H) 1.413-1.808
Nirspec-6 1.558-2.315
Nirspec-7 1.839-2.630
CO 2.282-2.305
K 1.996-2.382
K-Prime 1.950-2.295
| Location | RNAS, Keck-2, f/15 input beam |
| Spectroscopy: | Low resolution: R=2000 (150 km/s), 3-pixel slit (0.57") |
| High resolution: R=25,000, 3-pixel slit (0.43") | |
| Low-Res Slits: | 42x0.380" (2-pix) |
| 42x0.570" (3-pix) | |
| 42x0.760" (4-pix) | |
| High-Res Slits: | 0.144"x12 (1-pix) |
| 0.288"x12 (2-pix) | |
| 0.432"x12 (3-pix) | |
| 0.576"x12 (4-pix) | |
| 0.720"x12 (5-pix) | |
| 0.288"x24 (2-pix) | |
| 0.432"x24 (3-pix) | |
| 0.576"x24 (4-pix) | |
| 0.720"x24 (5-pix) | |
| Guider: | 1024x1024 MAGIQ, 0.20 arcsec pixels, annular FOV. Filters: V, R, I, RG780, ND: Open, ND1, ND2, ND3, ND4 |
| Guiding also available on SCAM. | |
| Optics: | Spectrograph optics all reflecting, diamond-machined, post-polished, Al/Ni-Al substrates, silver or gold coated. |
| Cryogenics: | Full vacuum enclosure, CCR continuous cooling to 60 K (30 K for the ALADDIN). |
| All cryogenic mechanisms, including image derotator to fix sky PA on slit. | |
| Electronics: | Transputer-based architecture. |
| User Interface: | DataViews (control) and IDL (quicklook, image rotator control, and echelle format simulator). |
| Performance: | SCAM image quality FWHM 0.3-0.55" typical. |
| SCAM J-band zero point: 24.7 mag @ 1 DN/s. | |
| Other sensitivity TBD. |
| Web & Contact | |
| WWW sites: | NIRSPEC Home Page |
| UCLA NIRSPEC Page | |
| CARA contact: | |