NIRSPEC is a cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph designed for Keck II. It can be used with or without AO.

NIRSPEC was upgraded in late 2018 and is now back in service.

NIRSPEC was designed and built by the UCLA Infrared Laboratory under the leadership of PI Ian McLean. The instrument is optimized as a high-resolution spectrograph for the wavelength region from 0.95-5.5 μm. The resolving power (R=λ/Δλ) is 25,000 (12 km/s) for a slit width of Θ=0.43 arcseconds (4.5 pixels). Alternatively, the RΘ product is 10,800. A special low-resolution mode of R=2,500 is also provided. NIRSPEC has 3 detectors: a standard CCD camera for acquisition and offset guiding, a 1-5.5 μm near-infrared "slit-viewing" camera - SCAM (Upgraded), and the primary 2048 x 2048 IR array - SPEC (upgraded) for the spectrograph itself.

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