This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 9908 including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction, and Conference Committee listing.

The Paranal Instrumentation Programme is responsible for planning and delivering the instruments and the associated infrastructure needed to keep the VLT and La Silla Observatories at the forefront of ground-based astronomy. The VLT second generation instruments KMOS, MUSE and SPHERE have been delivered and are in operations, GRAVITY is under commissioning at the renewed VLTI facility. The Adapative Optics Facility is moving towards completion, as well as the high resolution spectrograph ESPRESSO and the VLTI second generation instrument MATISSE. The mid-IR imager and spectrograph VISIR has been upgraded, and a major upgrade of the CRIRES spectrograph is under way. Finally, two new Multi Object Spectrographs projects have started, one for the VLT (MOONS), one for the 4M VISTA telescope (4MOST), and two new instruments for La Silla, (SOXS and NIRPS) fully funded by the community, are being agreed. The Programme follows a roadmap that foresees one new instrument/project or one upgrade starting every year. Active management, cost to completion and risk policy are in place.

We present the instrumentation plan of the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) until 2019. It includes a suite of instruments covering a wide wavelength range (from 350 to 2000 nm), with imaging, multiplexed (MOS, IFUs, and Fabry-Perot) spectroscopy at a resolution up to R=30000, polarimetric capabilities, and adaptive optics correction. Up to six instruments will be simultaneously available, taking advantage of five, full-equipped and interchangeable focal configurations of GTC, which include one Main Cassegrain focus, two Nasmyth platforms, and two Folded-Cassegrain foci.

The W. M. Keck Observatory is committed to maintaining the scientific leadership of our observing community by matching our observers' skills and passions in their fields of astronomical science with a continuing dedication by the Observatory and its collaborators to the development of state of the art instrumentation and systems. Our science driven strategic plan guides these developments and informs our plans for the future. In this paper we describe the performance of recently completed new instruments, instrument upgrades, and infrastructure upgrade projects. We also describe the expected performance of projects currently in the development or construction phases. Projects recently completed include a new laser for the Keck II AO system, the upgrade of the spectrograph detector in the OSIRIS instrument, and the upgrade to the telescope control system on the Keck II telescope. Projects in development include an upgrade to the telescope control system on the Keck I telescope, the blue channel of the Keck Cosmic Web Imager, the red channel of the Keck Cosmic Web Imager, the Keck Planet Finder, a deployable tertiary mirror for the Keck I telescope, an upgrade to the imager of OSIRIS, a major upgrade to the NIRSPEC instrument, and a fiber feed from the Keck II AO system to NIRSPEC.

In the past few years, a new prime focus optical imager Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC), which has 1.5 deg field of view (FoV), is commissioned and started its science operation. Prime-Focus Spectrograph (PFS), which is an optical to near-infrared multiplexed spectrograph over 1.3 deg FoV is currently in the construction phase and will be a next facility instrument to promote the wide-field astronomy at Subaru together with HSC. As a new facility instrument program, ULTIMATE-Subaru, which will develop wide-field near-infrared instruments with the aid of ground-layer adaptive optics system, is being planned. In addition to the new facility instruments, upgrades of the existing facility instruments and developments of several visitor instruments are in progress. This paper gives an overview of current and future instrumentation at the Subaru telescope.

Under the new operational purview of the East Asian Observatory, the JCMT continues to produce premier wide-field submillimetre science. Now the Observatory looks to embark on an ambitious series of instrumentation upgrades and opportunities to keep the telescope at the bleeding edge of its performance capabilities, whilst harnessing the collaborative expertise of the participating EAO regions and its JCMT partners. New heterodyne instruments include a new receiver at 230 GHz, a super array (90 pixels) at 345 GHz and the upgrade possibilities for the continuum camera SCUBA-2. In addition, the opportunities for PI and visiting instruments, including TimePilot and Gismo-2 will be described.

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is being designed to optimize studies of the magnetic coupling between the lower layers of the solar atmosphere (the photosphere and chromosphere) in order to investigate the origins and evolution of the solar magnetic field and its role in driving solar activity. In order to achieve this, the thermal, dynamic and magnetic properties of the solar plasma must be probed over many scale heights and at intrinsic scales, requiring the use of multi wavelength spectroscopy and spectropolarimetry at high spatial, spectral and temporal resolution. In this paper we describe some of the over-arching science questions that EST will address and briefly outline the main features of the proposed telescope design and the associated instrumentation package.

We present a performance report for FLITECAM, a 1-5 μm imager and spectrograph, upon its acceptance and delivery to SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy). FLITECAM has two observing configurations: solo configuration and “FLIPO” configuration, which is the co-mounting of FLITECAM with the optical instrument HIPO (PI E. Dunham, Lowell Observatory). FLITECAM was commissioned in the FLIPO configuration in 2014 and flew in the solo configuration for the first time in Fall 2015, shortly after its official delivery to SOFIA. Here we quantify FLITECAM’s imaging and spectral performance in both configurations and discuss the science capabilities of each configuration, with examples from in-flight commissioning and early science data. The solo configuration (which comprises fewer warm optics) has better sensitivity at longer wavelengths. We also discuss the causes of excess background detected in the in-flight FLITECAM images at low elevations and describe the current plan to mitigate the largest contributor to this excess background.

The Immersion Grating Infrared Spectrometer (IGRINS) is a revolutionary instrument that exploits broad spectral coverage at high-resolution in the near-infrared. IGRINS employs a silicon immersion grating as the primary disperser, and volume-phase holographic gratings cross-disperse the H and K bands onto Teledyne Hawaii-2RG arrays. The use of an immersion grating facilitates a compact cryostat while providing simultaneous wavelength coverage from 1.45 - 2.5 μm. There are no cryogenic mechanisms in IGRINS and its high-throughput design maximizes sensitivity. IGRINS on the 2.7 meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory is nearly as sensitive as CRIRES at the 8 meter Very Large Telescope. However, IGRINS at R≈45,000 has more than 30 times the spectral grasp of CRIRES* in a single exposure. Here we summarize the performance of IGRINS from the first 300 nights of science since commissioning in summer 2014. IGRINS observers have targeted solar system objects like Pluto and Ceres, comets, nearby young stars, star forming regions like Taurus and Ophiuchus, the interstellar medium, photo dissociation regions, the Galactic Center, planetary nebulae, galaxy cores and super novae. The rich near-infrared spectra of these objects motivate unique science cases, and provide information on instrument performance. There are more than ten submitted IGRINS papers and dozens more in preparation. With IGRINS on a 2.7m telescope we realize signal-to-noise ratios greater than 100 for K=10.3 magnitude sources in one hour of exposure time. Although IGRINS is Cassegrain mounted, instrument flexure is sub-pixel thanks to the compact design. Detector characteristics and stability have been tested regularly, allowing us to adjust the instrument operation and improve science quality. A wide variety of science programs motivate new tools for analyzing high-resolution spectra including multiplexed spectral extraction, atmospheric model fitting, rotation and radial velocity, unique line identification, and circumstellar disk modeling. Here we discuss details of instrument performance, summarize early science results, and show the characteristics of IGRINS as a versatile near-infrared spectrograph and forerunner of future silicon immersion grating spectrographs like iSHELL² and GMTNIRS.³

We present an overview of the VISIR instrument after its upgrade and return to science operations. VISIR is the midinfrared imager and spectrograph at ESO’s VLT. The project team is comprised of ESO staff and members of the original VISIR consortium: CEA Saclay and ASTRON. The project plan was based on input from the ESO user community with the goal of enhancing the scientific performance and efficiency of VISIR by a combination of measures: installation of improved hardware, optimization of instrument operations and software support. The cornerstone of the upgrade is the 1k by 1k Si:As AQUARIUS detector array manufactured by Raytheon. In addition, a new prism spectroscopic mode covers the whole N-band in a single observation. Finally, new scientific capabilities for high resolution and high-contrast imaging are offered by sub-aperture mask and coronagraphic modes. In order to make optimal use of favourable atmospheric conditions, a water vapour monitor has been deployed on Paranal, allowing for real-time decisions and the introduction of a user-defined constraint on water vapour. During the commissioning in 2012, it was found that the on-sky sensitivity of the AQUARIUS detector was significantly below expectations. Extensive testing of the detector arrays in the laboratory and on-sky enabled us to diagnose the cause for the shortcoming of the detector as excess low frequency noise. It is inherent to the design chosen for this detector and cannot be remedied by changing the detector set-up. Since this is a form of correlated noise, its impact can be limited by modulating the scene recorded by the detector. After careful analysis, we have implemented fast (up to 4 Hz) chopping with field stabilization using the secondary mirror of the VLT. During commissioning, the upgraded VISIR has been confirmed to be more sensitive than the old instrument, and in particular for low-resolution spectroscopy in the N-band, a gain of a factor 6 is realized in observing efficiency. After overcoming several additional technical problems, VISIR is back in Science Operations since April 2015. In addition an upgrade of the IT infrastructure related to VISIR has been conducted in order to support burst-mode operations. Science Verification of the new modes was performed in Feb 2016. The upgraded VISIR is a powerful instrument providing close to background limited performance for diffraction-limited observations at an 8-m telescope. It offers synergies with facilities such as ALMA, JWST, VLTI and SOFIA, while a wealth of targets is available from survey works like WISE. In addition, it will bring confirmation of the technical readiness and scientific value of several aspects for future mid-IR instrumentation at Extremely Large Telescopes. We also present several lessons learned during the project.

The Multi-Object Spectrograph for Infrared Exploration (MOSFIRE) achieved first light on the W. M. Keck Observatory’s Keck I telescope on 4 April 2012 and quickly became the most popular Keck I instrument. One of the primary reasons for the instrument’s popularity is that it uses a configurable slitmask unit developed by the Centre Suisse d’Electronique et Microtechnique (CSEM SA) to isolate the light from up to 46 objects simultaneously. In collaboration with the instrument development team and CSEM engineers, the Keck observatory staff present how MOSFIRE is successfully used, and we identify what contributed to routine and trouble free nighttime operations.

The High Acuity Wide field K-band Imager (HAWK-I) instrument is a cryogenic wide field imager operating in the wavelength range 0.9 to 2.5 microns. It has been in operations since 2007 on the UT4 at the Very Large Telescope Observatory in seeing-limited mode. In 2017-2018, GRound Layer Adaptive optics Assisted by Lasers module (GRAAL) will be in operation and the system GRAAL+HAWK-I will be commissioned. It will allow: deeper exposures for nearly point-source objects, or shorter exposure times for reaching the same magnitude, and/or deeper detection limiting magnitude. With GRAAL, HAWK-I will operate more than 80% of the time with an equivalent K-band seeing of 0.55" (instead of 0.7" without GRAAL). GRAAL is already installed and the operations without adaptive optics were commissioned in 2015. We discuss here the latest updates on performance from HAWK-I without Adaptive Optics (AO) and the preparation for the commissioning of the system GRAAL+HAWK-I.

SPIFFI is an AO-fed integral field spectrograph operating as part of SINFONI on the VLT, which will be upgraded and reused as SPIFFIER in the new VLT instrument ERIS. In January 2016, we used new technology developments to perform an early upgrade to optical subsystems in the SPIFFI instrument so ongoing scientific programs can make use of enhanced performance before ERIS arrives in 2020. We report on the upgraded components and the performance of SPIFFI after the upgrade, including gains in throughput and spatial and spectral resolution. We show results from re-commissioning, highlighting the potential for scientific programs to use the capabilities of the upgraded SPIFFI. Finally, we discuss the additional upgrades for SPIFFIER which will be implemented before it is integrated into ERIS.

The adaptive optics (AO) assisted CRIRES instrument is an IR (0.92 - 5.2 μm) high-resolution spectrograph was in operation from 2006 to 2014 at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory. CRIRES was a unique instrument, accessing a parameter space (wavelength range and spectral resolution) up to now largely uncharted. It consisted of a single-order spectrograph providing long-slit (40 arcsecond) spectroscopy with a resolving power up to R=100 000. However the setup was limited to a narrow, single-shot, spectral range of about 1/70 of the central wavelength, resulting in low observing efficiency for many scientific programmes requiring a broad spectral coverage. The CRIRES upgrade project, CRIRES⁺, transforms this VLT instrument into a cross-dispersed spectrograph to increase the simultaneously covered wavelength range by a factor of ten. A new and larger detector focal plane array of three Hawaii 2RG detectors with 5.3 μm cut-off wavelength will replace the existing detectors. For advanced wavelength calibration, custom-made absorption gas cells and an etalon system will be added. A spectro-polarimetric unit will allow the recording of circular and linear polarized spectra. This upgrade will be supported by dedicated data reduction software allowing the community to take full advantage of the new capabilities offered by CRIRES⁺. CRIRES⁺ has now entered its assembly and integration phase and will return with all new capabilities by the beginning of 2018 to the Very Large Telescope in Chile. This article will provide the reader with an update of the current status of the instrument as well as the remaining steps until final installation at the Paranal Observatory.

The combination of Lucky Imaging with a low order adaptive optics system was demonstrated very successfully on the Palomar 5m telescope nearly 10 years ago. It is still the only system to give such high-resolution images in the visible or near infrared on ground-based telescope of faint astronomical targets. The development of AOLI for deployment initially on the WHT 4.2 m telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands, will be described in this paper. In particular, we will look at the design and status of our low order curvature wavefront sensor which has been somewhat simplified to make it more efficient, ensuring coverage over much of the sky with natural guide stars as reference object. AOLI uses optically butted electron multiplying CCDs to give an imaging array of 2000 x 2000 pixels.

LINC-NIRVANA is an innovative, high-resolution near-infrared imager for the Large Binocular Telescope. Its Multi- Conjugate Adaptive Optics system uses natural guide-stars and provides high sky coverage for single-eye, binocular, and eventually, interferometric observations. We report on final lab integration and system level testing, as well as technical and logistical challenges of shipping and installing a large, delicate, complex instrument. LINC-NIRVANA is currently at LBT undergoing final alignment and tests before First Light late this fall. Managing the transition to operations involves the interactions between telescope alignment and calibration, commissioning of the instrument, and executing the Early Science plan.

The Coronagraphic High Angular Resolution Imaging Spectrograph (CHARIS) is an integral field spectrograph (IFS) that has been built for the Subaru telescope. CHARIS has two imaging modes; the high-resolution mode is R82, R69, and R82 in J, H, and K bands respectively while the low-resolution discovery mode uses a second low-resolution prism with R19 spanning 1.15-2.37 microns (J+H+K bands). The discovery mode is meant to augment the low inner working angle of the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) adaptive optics system, which feeds CHARIS a coronagraphic image. The goal is to detect and characterize brown dwarfs and hot Jovian planets down to contrasts five orders of magnitude dimmer than their parent star at an inner working angle as low as 80 milliarcseconds. CHARIS constrains spectral crosstalk through several key aspects of the optical design. Additionally, the repeatability of alignment of certain optical components is critical to the calibrations required for the data pipeline. Specifically, the relative alignment of the lenslet array, prism, and detector must be highly stable and repeatable between imaging modes. We report on the measured repeatability and stability of these mechanisms, measurements of spectral crosstalk in the instrument, and the propagation of these errors through the data pipeline. Another key design feature of CHARIS is the prism, which pairs Barium Fluoride with Ohara L-BBH2 high index glass. The dispersion of the prism is significantly more uniform than other glass choices, and the CHARIS prisms represent the first NIR astronomical instrument that uses L-BBH2 as the high index material. This material choice was key to the utility of the discovery mode, so significant efforts were put into cryogenic characterization of the material. The final performance of the prism assemblies in their operating environment is described in detail. The spectrograph is going through final alignment, cryogenic cycling, and is being delivered to the Subaru telescope in April 2016. This paper is a report on the laboratory performance of the spectrograph, and its current status in the commissioning process so that observers will better understand the instrument capabilities. We will also discuss the lessons learned during the testing process and their impact on future high-contrast imaging spectrographs for wavefront control.

FRIDA is a diffraction-limited imager and integral-field spectrometer that is being built for the adaptive-optics focus of the Gran Telescopio Canarias. In imaging mode FRIDA will provide scales of 0.010, 0.020 and 0.040 arcsec/pixel and in IFS mode spectral resolutions of 1500, 4000 and 30,000. FRIDA is starting systems integration and is scheduled to complete fully integrated system tests at the laboratory by the end of 2017 and to be delivered to GTC shortly thereafter. In this contribution we present a summary of its design, fabrication, current status and potential scientific applications.

For several years, we have been developing vortex phase masks based on sub-wavelength gratings, known as Annular Groove Phase Masks. Etched onto diamond substrates, these AGPMs are currently designed to be used in the thermal infrared (ranging from 3 to 13 μm). Our AGPMs were first installed on VLT/NACO and VLT/VISIR in 2012, followed by LBT/LMIRCam in 2013 and Keck/NIRC2 in 2015. In this paper, we review the development, commissioning, on-sky performance, and early scientific results of these new coronagraphic modes and report on the lessons learned. We conclude with perspectives for future developments and applications.

High-order wavefront correction is not only beneficial for high-contrast imaging, but also spectroscopy. The size of a spectrograph can be decoupled from the size of the telescope aperture by moving to the diffraction limit which has strong implications for ELT based instrument design. Here we present the construction and characterization of an extremely efficient single-mode fiber feed behind an extreme adaptive optics system (SCExAO). We show that this feed can indeed be utilized to great success by photonic-based spectrographs. We present metrics to quantify the system performance and some preliminary spectra delivered by the compact spectrograph.

The Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (BETTII) is a balloon-borne, far-infrared direct detection interferometer with a baseline of 8 m and two collectors of 50 cm. It is designed to study galactic clustered star formation by providing spatially-resolved spectroscopy of nearby star clusters. It is being assembled and tested at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for a first flight in Fall 2016. We report on recent progress concerning the pointing control system and discuss the overall status of the project as it gets ready for its commissioning flight.

In this invited paper, we implement a new way to study the stellar oscillations, pulsations and their evolutionary properties with long uninterrupted and continuous precision observations over 150 days from the ground, and without the regular interruptions imposed by the earth rotation. PAIX–First Robotic Antarctica Polar Mission– gives a new insight to cope with unresolved stellar enigma and stellar oscillation challenges and offers a great opportunity to benefit from an access to the best astronomical site on Earth –DomeC–. The project is made of low cost commercial components, and achieves astrophysical measurement time-series of stellar physics fields, challenging photometry from space that shows large gaps in terms of flexibility during the observing runs, the choice of targets, the repair of failures and the inexorable high costs. PAIX has yet more advantages than space missions in observing in UBV RI bands and then collecting unprecedented simultaneous multicolor light curves of several targets. We give a brief history of the Astronomy in Antarctica and describe the first polar robotized mission PAIX and the outcome of stellar physics from the heart of Antarctica during several polar nights. We briefly discuss our first results and perspectives on the pulsating stars and its evolution from Antarctica, especially the connection between temporal hydrodynamic phenomena and cyclic modulations. Finally, we highlight the impact of PAIX on the stellar physics study and the remaining challenges to successfully accomplish the Universe explorations under extreme conditions.

ASTEP (Antarctica Search for Transiting ExoPlanets) is a pilot project that aims at searching and characterizing transiting exoplanets from Dome C in Antarctica and to qualify this site for photometry in the visible. Two instruments were installed at Dome C and ran for six winters in total. The analysis of the collected data is nearly complete. We present the operation of the instruments, and the technical challenges, limitations, and possible solutions in light of the data quality. The instruments performed continuous observations during the winters. Human interventions are required mainly for regular inspection and ice dust removal. A defrosting system is efficient at preventing and removing ice on the mirrors. The PSF FWHM is 4.5 arcsec on average which is 2.5 times larger than the specification, and is highly variable; the causes are the poor ground-level seeing, the turbulent plumes generated by the heating system, and to a lower extent the imperfect optical alignment and focusing, and some astigmatism. We propose solutions for each of these aspects that would largely increase the PSF stability. The astrometric and guiding precisions are satisfactory and would deserve only minor improvements. Major issues are encountered with the camera shutter which did not close properly after two winters; we minimized this issue by heating the shutter and by developing specific image calibration algorithms. Finally, we summarize the site testing and science results obtained with ASTEP. Overall, the ASTEP experiment will serve as a basis to design and operate future optical and near-infrared telescopes in Antarctica.

Routine photometric monitoring at near-ultraviolet wavelengths (< 400 nm) is compromised from the ground due to highly variable atmospheric transmission and cloud cover. The GLUV project will mount a modest sized telescope (200 mm primary) on a series of long-duration high-altitude balloon flights. The wide field camera (~7 deg²) will perform high cadence (10-300 second rolling integrations) each night for campaign durations of three to six months. The principle science mission is the early-time detection of supernova shock-breakout at near-ultraviolet wavelengths. Additionally, early design analysis has shown the system is also able to probe the atmospheric composition of exoplanet atmospheres through the combination of UV transit measurements with ground-based measurements at longer wavelengths. In this presentation we consider the specifications for a long-duration balloon platform for such a mission, focusing on the necessary mission requirements (sensitivity, sky coverage, cadence etc.) and the available platform suitability. Particular attention is paid to platform flight altitude and atmospheric transmission.

We have deployed a new class of telescope, the Evryscope, which opens a new parameter space in optical astronomy - the ability to detect short time scale events across the entire sky simultaneously. The system is a gigapixel-scale array camera with an 8000 sq. deg. field of view, 13 arcsec per pixel sampling, and the ability to detect objects brighter than g = 16 in each 2-minute exposure. The Evryscope is designed to find transiting exoplanets around exotic stars, as well as detect nearby supernovae and provide continuous records of distant relativistic explosions like gamma-ray-bursts. The Evryscope uses commercially available CCDs and optics; the machine and assembly tolerances inherent in the mass production of these parts introduce problematic variations in the lens / CCD alignment which degrades image quality. We have built an automated alignment system (Robotilters) to solve this challenge. In this paper we describe the Robotilter system, mechanical and software design, image quality improvement, and current status.

HiPERCAM is a high-speed camera for the study of rapid variability in the Universe. The project is funded by a Ɛ3.5M European Research Council Advanced Grant. HiPERCAM builds on the success of our previous instrument, ULTRACAM, with very significant improvements in performance thanks to the use of the latest technologies. HiPERCAM will use 4 dichroic beamsplitters to image simultaneously in 5 optical channels covering the u’g’r’I’z’ bands. Frame rates of over 1000 per second will be achievable using an ESO CCD controller (NGC), with every frame GPS timestamped. The detectors are custom-made, frame-transfer CCDs from e2v, with 4 low noise (2.5e^-) outputs, mounted in small thermoelectrically-cooled heads operated at 180 K, resulting in virtually no dark current. The two reddest CCDs will be deep-depletion devices with anti-etaloning, providing high quantum efficiencies across the red part of the spectrum with no fringing. The instrument will also incorporate scintillation noise correction via the conjugate-plane photometry technique. The opto-mechanical chassis will make use of additive manufacturing techniques in metal to make a light-weight, rigid and temperature-invariant structure. First light is expected on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope on La Palma in 2017 (on which the field of view will be 10' with a 0.3"/pixel scale), with subsequent use planned on the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias on La Palma (on which the field of view will be 4' with a 0.11"/pixel scale) and the 3.5m New Technology Telescope in Chile.

The PAU (Physics of the Accelerating Universe) project goal is the study of dark energy with a new photometric technique aiming at obtaining photo-z resolution for Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) roughly one order of magnitude better than current photometric surveys. To accomplish this, a new large field of view camera (PAUCam) has been built and commissioned at the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). With the current WHT corrector, the camera covers ~1 degree diameter Field of View (FoV). The focal plane consists of 18 2kx4k Hamamatsu fully depleted CCDs, with high quantum efficiency up to 1 μm. To maximize the detector coverage within the FoV, filters are placed in front of the CCD's inside the camera cryostat (made of carbon fiber material) using a challenging movable tray system. The camera uses a set of 40 narrow band filters ranging from ~4400 to ~8600 angstroms complemented with six standard broad-band filters, ugrizY. Here, we describe the camera and its first commissioning results. The PAU project aims to cover roughly 100 square degrees and to obtain accurate photometric redshifts for galaxies down to i_AB ~ 22:5 detecting also galaxies down to i_AB ~ 24 with less precision in redshift. With this data set we will obtain competitive constraints in cosmological parameters using both weak lensing and galaxy clustering as main observational probes.

Over the last two decades, Optical Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence experiments have been conducted to search for either continuous or pulsed visible-light laser beacons that could be used for interstellar communication or energy transmission. Near-infrared offers a compelling window for signal transmission since there is a decrease in interstellar extinction and Galactic background compared to optical wavelengths. An innovative Near-InfraRed and Optical SETI (NIROSETI) instrument has been designed and constructed to take advantage of a new generation of fast (> 1 Ghz) low-noise near-infrared avalanche photodiodes to search for nanosecond pulsed near-infrared (850 - 1650 nm) pulses. The instrument was successfully installed and commissioned at the Nickel (1m) telescope at Lick Observatory in March 2015. We will describe the overall design of the instrument with a focus on methods developed for data acquisition and reduction for near-infrared SETI. Time and height analyses of the pulses produced by the detectors are performed to search for periodicity and coincidences in the signals. We will further discuss our NIROSETI survey plans.

The J-PAS project will perform a five-year survey of the northern sky from a new 2.5m telescope in Teruel, Spain. In this paper the build and factory testing of the commercially supplied cryogenic camera is described. The 1.2 Giga-pixel focal plane is contained within a novel liquid-nitrogen cooled vacuum cryostat, which maintains the flatness for the cooled, 0.45m diameter focal plane to better than 27 μm peak to valley. The cooling system controls the focal plane to a temperature of -100°C with a variation across the focal plane of better than 2.5oC and a stability of better than +/- 0.5 °C over the long periods of operation required. The proximity drive electronics achieves total system level noise performance better than 5 e- from the 224-channel CCD system.

The CARMENES instrument is a pair of high-resolution (R⪆80,000) spectrographs covering the wavelength range from 0.52 to 1.71 μm, optimized for precise radial velocity measurements. It was installed and commissioned at the 3.5m telescope of the Calar Alto observatory in Southern Spain in 2015. The first large science program of CARMENES is a survey of ~ 300 M dwarfs, which started on Jan 1, 2016. We present an overview of all subsystems of CARMENES (front end, fiber system, visible-light spectrograph, near-infrared spectrograph, calibration units, etalons, facility control, interlock system, instrument control system, data reduction pipeline, data flow, and archive), and give an overview of the assembly, integration, verification, and commissioning phases of the project. We show initial results and discuss further plans for the scientific use of CARMENES.

The Kepler mission highlighted that precision radial velocity (PRV) follow-up is a real bottleneck in supporting transiting exoplanet surveys. The limited availability of PRV instruments, and the desire to break the “1 m/s” precision barrier, prompted the formation of a NASA-NSF collaboration ‘NN-EXPLORE’ to call for proposals designing a new Extreme Precision Doppler Spectrograph (EPDS). By securing a significant fraction of telescope time on the 3.5m WIYN at Kitt Peak, and aiming for unprecedented long-term precision, the EPDS instrument will provide a unique tool for U.S. astronomers in characterizing exoplanet candidates identified by TESS. One of the two funded instrument concept studies is led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in consortium with Lincoln Laboratories, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Carnegie Observatories. This paper describes the instrument concept WISDOM (WIYN Spectrograph for DOppler Monitoring) prepared by this team. WISDOM is a fiber fed, environmentally controlled, high resolution (R=110k), asymmetric white-pupil echelle spectrograph, covering a wide 380-1300nm wavelength region. Its R4 and R6 echelle gratings provide the main dispersion, symmetrically mounted on either side of a vertically aligned, vacuum-enclosed carbon fiber optical bench. Each grating feeds two cameras and thus the resulting wavelength range per camera is narrow enough that the VPHG cross-dispersers and employed anti-reflection coatings are highly efficient. The instrument operates near room temperature, and so thermal background for the near-infrared arm is mitigated by thermal blocking filters and a short (1.7μm) cutoff HgCdTe detector. To achieve high resolution while maintaining small overall instrument size (100/125mm beam diameter), imposed by the limited available space within the observatory building, we chose to slice the telescope pupil 6 ways before coupling light into fibers. An atmospheric dispersion corrector and fast tip-tilt system assures maximal light gathering within the 1.2″ entrance aperture. The six octagonal fibers corresponding to each slice of the pupil employ ball-lens double scramblers to stabilize the near- and far-fields. Three apiece are coupled into each of two rectangular fibers, to mitigate modal nose and present a rectilinear illumination pattern at the spectrograph's slit plane. Wavelength solutions are derived from ThAr lamps and an extremely wide coverage dual-channel laser frequency comb. Data is reduced on the fly for evaluation by a custom pipeline, while daily archives and extended scope data reduction products are stored on NExScI servers, also managing archives and access privileges for GTO and GO programs. Note: individual papers, submitted along this main paper, describe the details of subsystems such as the optical design (Barnes et al., 9908-247), the fiber link design (Fűrész et al., 9908-281), and the pupil slicer (Egan et al., 9912-183).

The Gemini High-Resolution Optical SpecTrograph (GHOST) is the newest instrument chosen for the Gemini South telescope. It is being developed by a collaboration between the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO), the NRC - Herzberg in Canada and the Australian National University (ANU). Using recent technological advances and several novel concepts it will deliver spectroscopy with R>50,000 for up to 2 objects simultaneously or R>75,000 for a single object. GHOST uses a fiber-image-slicer to allow use of a much smaller spectrograph than that nominally required by the resolution-slit–width product. With its fiber feed, we expect GHOST to have a sensitivity in the wavelength range between 363-950 nm that equals or exceeds that of similar directly-fed instruments on world-class facilities. GHOST has entered the build phase. We report the status of the instrument and describe the technical advances and the novel aspects, such as the lenslet-based slit reformatting. Finally, we describe the unique scientific role this instrument will have in an international context, from exoplanets through stellar elemental abundances to the distant Universe. Keywords: Gemini, spectrograph, spectroscopy, ́echelle, high resolution, radial velocity, fiber image slicer, integral field unit.

We report on the development and construction of a new fiber-fed, red-optical, high-precision radial-velocity spectrograph for one of the twin 6.5m Magellan Telescopes in Chile. MAROON-X will be optimized to find and characterize rocky planets around nearby M dwarfs with an intrinsic per measurement noise floor below 1ms^-1. The instrument is based on a commercial echelle spectrograph customized for high stability and throughput. A microlens array based pupil slicer and double scrambler, as well as a rubidium-referenced etalon comb calibrator will turn this spectrograph into a high-precision radial-velocity machine. MAROON-X will undergo extensive lab tests in the second half of 2016.

We are developing a stable and precise spectrograph for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) named “iLocater.” The instrument comprises three principal components: a cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph that operates in the YJ-bands (0.97-1.30 μm), a fiber-injection acquisition camera system, and a wavelength calibration unit. iLocater will deliver high spectral resolution (R~150,000-240,000) measurements that permit novel studies of stellar and substellar objects in the solar neighborhood including extrasolar planets. Unlike previous planet-finding instruments, which are seeing-limited, iLocater operates at the diffraction limit and uses single mode fibers to eliminate the effects of modal noise entirely. By receiving starlight from two 8.4m diameter telescopes that each use “extreme” adaptive optics (AO), iLocater shows promise to overcome the limitations that prevent existing instruments from generating sub-meter-per-second radial velocity (RV) precision. Although optimized for the characterization of low-mass planets using the Doppler technique, iLocater will also advance areas of research that involve crowded fields, line-blanketing, and weak absorption lines.

GIARPS (GIAno and haRPS) is a project devoted to have on the same focal station of the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) both the high resolution spectrographs HARPS-N (VIS) and GIANO (NIR) working simultaneously. This could be considered the first and unique worldwide instrument providing cross-dispersed echelle spectroscopy at a high resolution (R=115,000 in the visual and R=50,000 in the IR) and over in a wide spectral range (0.383 - 2.45 μm) in a single exposure. The science case is very broad, given the versatility of such an instrument and the large wavelength range. A number of outstanding science cases encompassing mainly extra-solar planet science starting from rocky planet search and hot Jupiters, atmosphere characterization can be considered. Furthermore both instrument can measure high precision radial velocity by means the simultaneous thorium technique (HARPS - N) and absorbing cell technique (GIANO) in a single exposure. Other science cases are also possible. Young stars and proto- planetary disks, cool stars and stellar populations, moving minor bodies in the solar system, bursting young stellar objects, cataclysmic variables and X-ray binary transients in our Galaxy, supernovae up to gamma-ray bursts in the very distant and young Universe, can take advantage of the unicity of this facility both in terms of contemporaneous wide wavelength range and high resolution spectroscopy.

High-precision astronomical spectrographs routinely employed to detect planets via the radial velocity method are generally large and expensive instruments. We present our progress developing a compact spectrograph using commercial ‘off-the-shelf’ components that can achieve similar precision at a fraction of the cost. The spectrograph, PIMMS Visible, has a resolving power of R-50,000 operating in the visible regime. We are able to obtain RMS velocity precisions of better than ~1 m/s by calibrating with a stabilised single-mode etalon. As a technology proof we attempt to detect the solar 5- minute period p-mode oscillations (a few m/s signal).

The High Efficiency and Resolution Multi Element Spectrograph, HERMES is a facility-class optical spectrograph for the AAT. It is designed primarily for Galactic Archeology, the first major attempt to create a detailed understanding of galaxy formation and evolution by studying the history of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The goal of the Galactic Archeology with Hermes (GALAH) survey is to reconstruct the mass assembly history of the Milky Way, through a detailed spatially tagged abundance study of one million stars. The spectrograph is based at the Anglo Australian Telescope (AAT) and is fed by the existing 2dF robotic fiber positioning system. The spectrograph uses VPH-gratings to achieve a spectral resolving power of 28,000 in standard mode and also provides a high-resolution mode ranging between 40,000 to 50,000 using a slit mask. The GALAH survey requires a SNR greater than 100 for a star brightness of V=14. The total spectral coverage of the four channels is about 100nm between 370 and 1000nm for up to 392 simultaneous targets within the 2- degree field of view. Hermes was commissioned in late 2013, with the GALAH Pilot starting in parallel with the commissioning. The GALAH survey started in early 2014 is currently about 33% complete. We present a description of the motivating science; an overview the instrument; and a status report on GALAH Survey.

Hector^[1,2,3] will be the new massively-multiplexed integral field spectroscopy (IFS) instrument for the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) in Australia and the next main dark-time instrument for the observatory. Based on the success of the SAMI instrument, which is undertaking a 3400-galaxy survey, the integral field unit (IFU) imaging fibre bundle (hexabundle) technology under-pinning SAMI is being improved to a new innovative design for Hector. The distribution of hexabundle angular sizes is matched to the galaxy survey properties in order to image 90% of galaxies out to 2 effective radii. 50-100 of these IFU imaging bundles will be positioned by ‘starbug’ robots across a new 3-degree field corrector top end to be purpose-built for the AAT. Many thousand fibres will then be fed into new replicable spectrographs. Fundamentally new science will be achieved compared to existing instruments due to Hector's wider field of view (3 degrees), high positioning efficiency using starbugs, higher spectroscopic resolution (R=3000-5500 from 3727-7761Å, with a possible redder extension later) and large IFUs (up to 30 arcsec diameter with 61-217 fibre cores). A 100,000 galaxy IFS survey with Hector will decrypt how the accretion and merger history and large-scale environment made every galaxy different in its morphology and star formation history. The high resolution, particularly in the blue, will make Hector the only instrument to be able to measure higher-order kinematics for galaxies down to much lower velocity dispersion than in current large IFS galaxy surveys, opening up a wealth of new nearby galaxy science.

We present the Final Design of the WEAVE next-generation spectroscopy facility for the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), together with a status update on the details of manufacturing, integration and the overall project schedule now that all the major fabrication contracts are in place. We also present a summary of the current planning behind the 5-year initial phase of survey operations. WEAVE will provide optical ground-based follow up of ground-based (LOFAR) and space-based (Gaia) surveys. WEAVE is a multi-object and multi-IFU facility utilizing a new 2-degree prime focus field of view at the WHT, with a buffered pick-and-place positioner system hosting 1000 multi-object (MOS) fibres, 20 integral field units, or a single large IFU for each observation. The fibres are fed to a single (dual-beam) spectrograph, with total of 16k spectral pixels, located within the WHT GHRIL enclosure on the telescope Nasmyth platform, supporting observations at R~5000 over the full 370-1000nm wavelength range in a single exposure, or a high resolution mode with limited coverage in each arm at R~20000. The project is now in the manufacturing and integration phase with first light expected for early of 2018.

The Visible Integral-field Replicable Unit Spectrograph (VIRUS) consists of 156 identical spectrographs (arrayed as 78 pairs) fed by 35,000 fibers, each 1.5 arcsec diameter, at the focus of the upgraded 10 m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET). VIRUS has a fixed bandpass of 350-550 nm and resolving power R~700. VIRUS is the first example of industrial-scale replication applied to optical astronomy and is capable of surveying large areas of sky, spectrally. The VIRUS concept offers significant savings of engineering effort, cost, and schedule when compared to traditional instruments. The main motivator for VIRUS is to map the evolution of dark energy for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX‡), using 0.8M Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies as tracers. The VIRUS array is undergoing staged deployment during 2016 and 2017. It will provide a powerful new facility instrument for the HET, well suited to the survey niche of the telescope, and will open up large spectroscopic surveys of the emission line universe for the first time. We will review the production, lessons learned in reaching volume production, characterization, and first deployment of this massive instrument.

VIRUS is a massively replicated spectrograph built for HETDEX, the Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment. It consists of 156 channels within 78 units fed by 34944 fibers over the 22 arcminute field of the upgraded HET. VIRUS covers a relatively narrow bandpass (350-550nm) at low resolution (R ~ 700) to target the emission of Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs) for HETDEX. VIRUS is a first demonstration of industrial style assembly line replication in optical astronomy. Installation and testing of VIRUS units began in November of 2015. This winter we celebrated the first on sky instrument activity of the upgraded HET, using a VIRUS unit and LRS2-R (the upgraded facility Low Resolution Spectrograph for the HET). Here we describe progress in VIRUS installation and commissioning through June 2016. We include early sky data obtained to characterize spectrograph performance and on sky performance of the newly upgraded HET. As part of the instrumentation for first science light at the HET, the IFU fed spectrographs were used to test a full range of telescope system functionality including the field calibration unit (FCU).We also use placement of strategic IFUs to map the new HET field to the fiber placement, and demonstrate actuation of the dithering mechanism key to HETDEX observations.

We report the results on the EMIR¹ (Espectrógrafo Multiobjeto Infra-Rojo) performances after the commissioning period of the instrument at the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). EMIR is one of the first common user instruments for the GTC, the 10 meter telescope operating at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain). EMIR is being built by a Consortium of Spanish and French institutes led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). EMIR is primarily designed to be operated as a MOS in the K band, but offers a wide range of observing modes, including imaging and spectroscopy, both long slit and multiobject, in the wavelength range 0.9 to 2.5 μm. The development and fabrication of EMIR is funded by GRANTECAN and the Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica (National Plan for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Spain). After an extensive and intensive period of system verification at the IAC, EMIR was shipped to the GTC on May 2016 for its integration at the Nasmyth platform. Once in the observatory, several tests were conducted to ensure the functionality of EMIR at the telescope, in particular that of the ECS (EMIR Control System) which has to be fully embedded into the GCS (GTC Control System) so as to become an integral part of it. During the commissioning, the main capabilities of EMIR and its combined operation with the GTC are tested and the ECS are modified to its final form. This contribution reports on the details of the EMIR operation at the GTC obtained so far, on the first commissioning period.

MEGARA (Multi-Espectrógrafo en GTC de Alta Resolución para Astronomía) is an optical Integral-Field Unit (IFU) and Multi-Object Spectrograph (MOS) designed for the GTC 10.4m telescope in La Palma that is being built by a Consortium led by UCM (Spain) that also includes INAOE (Mexico), IAA-CSIC (Spain), and UPM (Spain). The instrument is currently finishing AIV and will be sent to GTC on November 2016 for its on-sky commissioning on April 2017. The MEGARA IFU fiber bundle (LCB) covers 12.5x11.3 arcsec2 with a spaxel size of 0.62 arcsec while the MEGARA MOS mode allows observing up to 92 objects in a region of 3.5x3.5 arcmin² around the IFU. The IFU and MOS modes of MEGARA will provide identical intermediate-to-high spectral resolutions (RFWHM~6,000, 12,000 and 18,700, respectively for the low-, mid- and high-resolution Volume Phase Holographic gratings) in the range 3700-9800ÅÅ. An x-y mechanism placed at the pseudo-slit position allows (1) exchanging between the two observing modes and (2) focusing the spectrograph for each VPH setup. The spectrograph is a collimator-camera system that has a total of 11 VPHs simultaneously available (out of the 18 VPHs designed and being built) that are placed in the pupil by means of a wheel and an insertion mechanism. The custom-made cryostat hosts a 4kx4k 15-μm CCD. The unique characteristics of MEGARA in terms of throughput and versatility and the unsurpassed collecting are of GTC make of this instrument the most efficient tool to date to analyze astrophysical objects at intermediate spectral resolutions. In these proceedings we present a summary of the instrument characteristics and the results from the AIV phase. All subsystems have been successfully integrated and the system-level AIV phase is progressing as expected.

The Mid-resolution InfRAreD Astronomical Spectrograph (MIRADAS, a near-infrared multi-object echelle spectrograph operating at spectral resolution R=20,000 over the 1-2.5μm bandpass) was selected by the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) partnership as the next-generation near-infrared spectrograph for the world's largest optical/infrared telescope, and is being developed by an international consortium. The MIRADAS consortium includes the University of Florida, Universidad de Barcelona, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya, as well as probe arm industrial partner A-V-S (Spain), with more than 45 Science Working Group members in 10 institutions primarily in Spain, Mexico, and the USA. In this paper, we review the overall system design and project status for MIRADAS during its early fabrication phase in 2016.

PFS (Prime Focus Spectrograph), a next generation facility instrument on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope, is a very wide-field, massively multiplexed, optical and near-infrared spectrograph. Exploiting the Subaru prime focus, 2394 reconfigurable fibers will be distributed over the 1.3 deg field of view. The spectrograph has been designed with 3 arms of blue, red, and near-infrared cameras to simultaneously observe spectra from 380nm to 1260nm in one exposure at a resolution of ~1.6 - 2.7Å. An international collaboration is developing this instrument under the initiative of Kavli IPMU. The project is now going into the construction phase aiming at undertaking system integration in 2017-2018 and subsequently carrying out engineering operations in 2018-2019. This article gives an overview of the instrument, current project status and future paths forward.

We present an overview of the 4MOST project at the Preliminary Design Review. 4MOST is a major new wide-field, high-multiplex spectroscopic survey facility under development for the VISTA telescope of ESO. 4MOST has a broad range of science goals ranging from Galactic Archaeology and stellar physics to the high-energy physics, galaxy evolution, and cosmology. Starting in 2021, 4MOST will deploy 2436 fibres in a 4.1 square degree field-of-view using a positioner based on the tilting spine principle. The fibres will feed one high-resolution (R~20,000) and two medium resolution (R~5000) spectrographs with fixed 3-channel designs and identical 6k x 6k CCD detectors. 4MOST will have a unique operations concept in which 5-year public surveys from both the consortium and the ESO community will be combined and observed in parallel during each exposure. The 4MOST Facility Simulator (4FS) was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of this observing concept, showing that we can expect to observe more than 25 million objects in each 5-year survey period and will eventually be used to plan and conduct the actual survey.

The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) project will transform the CFHT 3.6m optical telescope into a 10m class dedicated multi-object spectroscopic facility, with an ability to simultaneously measure thousands of objects with a spectral resolution range spanning 2,000 to 40,000. MSE will develop two spectrographic facilities to meet the science requirements. These are respectively, the Low/Medium Resolution spectrographs (LMRS) and High Resolution spectrographs (HRS). Multi-object high resolution spectrographs with total of 1,156 fibers is a big challenge, one that has never been attempted for a 10m class telescope. To date, most spectral survey facilities work in single order low/medium resolution mode, and only a few Wide Field Spectrographs (WFS) provide a cross-dispersion high resolution mode with a limited number of orders. Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology (NIAOT) propose a conceptual design with the use of novel image slicer arrays and single order immersed Volume Phase Holographic (VPH) grating for the MSE multi-object high resolution spectrographs. The conceptual scheme contains six identical fiber-link spectrographs, each of which simultaneously covers three restricted bands (λ/30, λ/30, λ/15) in the optical regime, with spectral resolution of 40,000 in Blue/Visible bands (400nm / 490nm) and 20,000 in Red band (650nm). The details of the design is presented in this paper.

ULTIMATE is an instrument concept under development at the AAO, for the Subaru Telescope, which will have the unique combination of ground layer adaptive optics feeding multiple deployable integral field units. This will allow ULTIMATE to probe unexplored parameter space, enabling science cases such as the evolution of galaxies at z ~ 0:5 to 1.5, and the dark matter content of the inner part of our Galaxy. ULTIMATE will use Starbugs to position between 7 and 13 IFUs over a 14 × 8 arcmin field-of-view, pro- vided by a new wide-field corrector. All Starbugs can be positioned simultaneously, to an accuracy of better than 5 milli-arcsec within the typical slew-time of the telescope, allowing for very efficient re-configuration between observations. The IFUs will feed either the near-infrared nuMOIRCS or the visible/ near-infrared PFS spectrographs, or both. Future possible upgrades include the possibility of purpose built spectrographs and incorporating OH suppression using fibre Bragg gratings. We describe the science case and resulting design requirements, the baseline instrument concept, and the expected performance of the instrument.

Multi-object spectroscopy has been a key technique contributing to the current era of ‘precision cosmology.’ From the first exploratory surveys of the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe to the current generation of superbly detailed maps spanning a wide range of redshifts, multi-object spectroscopy has been a fundamentally important tool for mapping the rich structure of the cosmic web and extracting cosmological information of increasing variety and precision. This will continue to be true for the foreseeable future, as we seek to map the evolving geometry and structure of the universe over the full extent of cosmic history in order to obtain the most precise and comprehensive measurements of cosmological parameters. Here I briefly summarize the contributions that multi-object spectroscopy has made to cosmology so far, then review the major surveys and instruments currently in play and their prospects for pushing back the cosmological frontier. Finally, I examine some of the next generation of instruments and surveys to explore how the field will develop in coming years, with a particular focus on specialised multi-object spectrographs for cosmology and the capabilities of multi-object spectrographs on the new generation of extremely large telescopes.

A suite of seven instruments and associated AO systems have been planned as the "E-ELT Instrumentation Roadmap". Following the E-ELT project approval in December 2014, rapid progress has been made in organising and signing the agreements for construction with European universities and institutes. Three instruments (HARMONI, MICADO and METIS) and one MCAO module (MAORY) have now been approved for construction. In addition, Phase-A studies have begun for the next two instruments - a multi-object spectrograph and high-resolution spectrograph. Technology development is also ongoing in preparation for the final instrument in the roadmap, the planetary camera and spectrograph. We present a summary of the status and capabilities of this first set of instruments for the E-ELT.

Instrument development for the 24m Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is described: current activities, progress, status, and schedule. One instrument team has completed its preliminary design and is currently beginning its final design (GCLEF, an optical 350-950 nm, high-resolution and precision radial velocity echelle spectrograph). A second instrument team is in its conceptual design phase (GMACS, an optical 350-950 nm, medium resolution, 6-10 arcmin field, multi-object spectrograph). A third instrument team is midway through its preliminary design phase (GMTIFS, a near-IR YJHK diffraction-limited imager/integral-field-spectrograph), focused on risk reduction prototyping and design optimization. A fourth instrument team is currently fabricating the 5 silicon immersion gratings needed to begin its preliminary design phase (GMTNIRS, a simultaneous JHKLM high-resolution, AO-fed, echelle spectrograph). And, another instrument team is focusing on technical development and prototyping (MANIFEST, a facility robotic, multifiber feed, with a 20 arcmin field of view). In addition, a medium-field (6 arcmin, 0.06 arcsec/pix) optical imager will support telescope and AO commissioning activities, and will excel at narrow-band imaging. In the spirit of advancing synergies with other groups, the challenges of running an ELT instrument program and opportunities for cross-ELT collaborations are discussed.

An overview of the current status of the science instruments for the Thirty Meter Telescope is presented. Three first-light instruments as well as a science calibration unit for AO-assisted instruments are under development. Developing instrument collaborations that can design and build these challenging instruments remains an area of intense activity. In addition to the instruments themselves, a preliminary design for a facility cryogenic cooling system based on gaseous helium turbine expanders has been completed. This system can deliver a total of 2.4 kilowatts of cooling power at 65K to the instruments with essentially no vibrations. Finally, the process for developing future instruments beyond first light has been extensively discussed and will get under way in early 2017.

IRIS is a near-infrared (0.84 to 2.4 micron) integral field spectrograph and wide-field imager being developed for first light with the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). It mounts to the advanced adaptive optics (AO) system NFIRAOS and has integrated on-instrument wavefront sensors (OIWFS) to achieve diffraction-limited spatial resolution at wavelengths longer than 1 μm. With moderate spectral resolution (R ~ 4000 – 8,000) and large bandpass over a continuous field of view, IRIS will open new opportunities in virtually every area of astrophysical science. It will be able to resolve surface features tens of kilometers across Titan, while also mapping the most distant galaxies at the scale of an individual star forming region. This paper summarizes the entire design and capabilities, and includes the results from the nearly completed preliminary design phase.

HARMONI is the E-ELT’s first light visible and near-infrared integral field spectrograph. It will provide four different spatial scales, ranging from coarse spaxels of 60 × 30 mas best suited for seeing limited observations, to 4 mas spaxels that Nyquist sample the diffraction limited point spread function of the E-ELT at near-infrared wavelengths. Each spaxel scale may be combined with eleven spectral settings, that provide a range of spectral resolving powers (R ~3500, 7500 and 20000) and instantaneous wavelength coverage spanning the 0.5 – 2.4 μm wavelength range of the instrument. In autumn 2015, the HARMONI project started the Preliminary Design Phase, following signature of the contract to design, build, test and commission the instrument, signed between the European Southern Observatory and the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. Crucially, the contract also includes the preliminary design of the HARMONI Laser Tomographic Adaptive Optics system. The instrument’s technical specifications were finalized in the period leading up to contract signature. In this paper, we report on the first activity carried out during preliminary design, defining the baseline architecture for the system, and the trade-off studies leading up to the choice of baseline.

GMTIFS is the first-generation adaptive optics integral-field spectrograph for the GMT, having been selected through a competitive review process in 2011. The GMTIFS concept is for a workhorse single-object integral-field spectrograph, operating at intermediate resolution (R~5,000 and 10,000) with a parallel imaging channel. The IFS offers variable spaxel scales to Nyquist sample the diffraction limited GMT PSF from λ ~ 1-2.5 μm as well as a 50 mas scale to provide high sensitivity for low surface brightness objects. The GMTIFS will operate with all AO modes of the GMT (Natural guide star - NGSAO, Laser Tomography – LTAO, and, Ground Layer - GLAO) with an emphasis on achieving high sky coverage for LTAO observations. We summarize the principle science drivers for GMTIFS and the major design concepts that allow these goals to be achieved.

MICADO will equip the E-ELT with a first light capability for diffraction limited imaging at near-infrared wavelengths. The instrument’s observing modes focus on various flavours of imaging, including astrometric, high contrast, and time resolved. There is also a single object spectroscopic mode optimised for wavelength coverage at moderately high resolution. This contribution provides an overview of the key functionality of the instrument, outlining the scientific rationale for its observing modes. The interface between MICADO and the adaptive optics system MAORY that feeds it is summarised. The design of the instrument is discussed, focusing on the optics and mechanisms inside the cryostat, together with a brief overview of the other key sub-systems.

METIS is one the first three instruments on the E-ELT. Apart from diffraction limited imaging, METIS will provide coronagraphy and medium resolution slit spectroscopy over the 3 – 19μm range, as well as high resolution (R ~ 100,000) integral field spectroscopy from 2.9 – 5.3μm, including a mode with extended instantaneous wavelength coverage. The unique combination of these observing capabilities, makes METIS the ideal instrument for the study of circumstellar disks and exoplanets, among many other science areas. In this paper we provide an update of the relevant science drivers, the METIS observing modes, the status of the simulator and the data analysis. We discuss the preliminary design of the optical system, which is driven by the need to calibrate observations at thermal IR wavelengths on a six-mirror ELT. We present the expected adaptive optics performance and the measures taken to enable high contrast imaging. We describe the opto-mechanical system, the location of METIS on the Nasmyth instrument platform, and conclude with an update on critical subsystem components, such as the immersed grating and the focal plane detectors. In summary, the work on METIS has taken off well and is on track for first light in 2025.

GMTNIRS is a first-generation instrument for the Giant Magellan Telescope. It is a high-resolution spectrograph that will cover the 1.15-5.3 μm range in a single exposure with R=60,000 in the J, H, and K bands and R=85,000 in the L and M bands. It resides on the GMT’s rotating instrument platform and employs the facility adaptive optics system. The GMTNIRS design is evolving in response to emerging science problems, particularly in the area of exoplanet atmospheres. Our design revisions also derive lessons from GMTNIRS’ highly successful forerunner instrument, IGRINS. Technical changes also drive evolution of the design. It has proven impractical to manufacture 200mm long immersion gratings at the necessary precision. The success of primary mirror phasing efforts has removed the need for a very wide entrance slit that we would have needed to accommodate the Airy pattern of individual segments at the shortest operating wavelengths. The high efficiency of our double-side coated JWST grisms introduces the possibility of transmissive cross-dispersers at L and M. These changes move us toward a design with almost the same R as presented in our previous work but with a much more compact physical envelope. We will report on the optimization of the instrument design with these technical changes in mind. We are also producing the critical Si immersion gratings. The grating production is well under way and includes manufacture of H and K gratings and process development for the precision needed in the J band and for the manufacture of larger gratings for the L and M band. The development of GMTNIRS is on track with the results from IGRINS and the progress in the lab giving us substantial assurance that the new instrument can meet its performance goals.

The GMT-Consortium Large Earth Finder (G-CLEF) will be a cross-dispersed, optical band echelle spectrograph to be delivered as the first light scientific instrument for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) in 2022. G-CLEF is vacuum enclosed and fiber-fed to enable precision radial velocity (PRV) measurements, especially for the detection and characterization of low-mass exoplanets orbiting solar-type stars. The passband of G-CLEF is broad, extending from 3500Å to 9500Å. This passband provides good sensitivity at blue wavelengths for stellar abundance studies and deep red response for observations of high-redshift phenomena. The design of G-CLEF incorporates several novel technical innovations. We give an overview of the innovative features of the current design. G-CLEF will be the first PRV spectrograph to have a composite optical bench so as to exploit that material’s extremely low coefficient of thermal expansion, high in-plane thermal conductivity and high stiffness-to-mass ratio. The spectrograph camera subsystem is divided into a red and a blue channel, split by a dichroic, so there are two independent refractive spectrograph cameras. The control system software is being developed in model-driven software context that has been adopted globally by the GMT. G-CLEF has been conceived and designed within a strict systems engineering framework. As a part of this process, we have developed a analytical toolset to assess the predicted performance of G-CLEF as it has evolved through design phases.

The first generation of E-ELT instruments will include an optic-infrared High Resolution Spectrograph, conventionally indicated as EELT-HIRES, which will be capable of providing unique breakthroughs in the fields of exoplanets, star and planet formation, physics and evolution of stars and galaxies, cosmology and fundamental physics. A 2-year long phase A study for EELT-HIRES has just started and will be performed by a consortium composed of institutes and organisations from Brazil, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. In this paper we describe the science goals and the preliminary technical concept for EELT-HIRES which will be developed during the phase A, as well as its planned development and consortium organisation during the study.

There are 8000 galaxies, including 1600 at z ≥ 1.6, which could be simultaneously observed in an E-ELT field of view of 40 arcmin². A considerable fraction of astrophysical discoveries require large statistical samples, which can only be obtained with multi-object spectrographs (MOS). MOSAIC will provide a vast discovery space, enabled by a multiplex of 200 and spectral resolving powers of R=5000 and 20000. MOSAIC will also offer the unique capability of more than 10 `high-definition' (multi-object adaptive optics, MOAO) integral-field units, optimised to investigate the physics of the sources of reionization. The combination of these modes will make MOSAIC the world-leading MOS facility, contributing to all fields of contemporary astronomy, from extra-solar planets, to the study of the halo of the Milky Way and its satellites, and from resolved stellar populations in nearby galaxies out to observations of the earliest ‘first-light’ structures in the Universe. It will also study the distribution of the dark and ordinary matter at all scales and epochs of the Universe. Recent studies of critical technical issues such as sky-background subtraction and MOAO have demonstrated that such a MOS is feasible with state-of-the-art technology and techniques. Current studies of the MOSAIC team include further trade-offs on the wavelength coverage, a solution for compensating for the non-telecentric new design of the telescope, and tests of the saturation of skylines especially in the near-IR bands. In the 2020s the E-ELT will become the world's largest optical/IR telescope, and we argue that it has to be equipped as soon as possible with a MOS to provide the most efficient, and likely the best way to follow-up on James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations.

SpUpNIC (Spectrograph Upgrade: Newly Improved Cassegrain) is the extensively upgraded Cassegrain Spectrograph on the South African Astronomical Observatory's 74-inch (1.9-m) telescope. The inverse-Cassegrain collimator mirrors and woefully inefficient Maksutov-Cassegrain camera optics have been replaced, along with the CCD and SDSU controller. All moving mechanisms are now governed by a programmable logic controller, allowing remote configuration of the instrument via an intuitive new graphical user interface. The new collimator produces a larger beam to match the optically faster Folded-Schmidt camera design and nine surface-relief diffraction gratings offer various wavelength ranges and resolutions across the optical domain. The new camera optics (a fused silica Schmidt plate, a slotted fold flat and a spherically figured primary mirror, both Zerodur, and a fused silica field-flattener lens forming the cryostat window) reduce the camera’s central obscuration to increase the instrument throughput. The physically larger and more sensitive CCD extends the available wavelength range; weak arc lines are now detectable down to 325 nm and the red end extends beyond one micron. A rear-of-slit viewing camera has streamlined the observing process by enabling accurate target placement on the slit and facilitating telescope focus optimisation. An interactive quick-look data reduction tool further enhances the user-friendliness of SpUpNI

During the past year, the Multi-Object InfraRed Camera and Spectrograph at Subaru has undergone an upgrade of its science detectors, the housekeeping electronics and the instrument control software. This overhaul aims at increasing MOIRCS' sensitivity, observing efficiency and stability. Here we present the installation and the alignment procedure of the two Hawaii 2RG detectors and the design of a cryogenic focus mechanism. The new detectors show significantly lower read noise, increased quantum efficiency, and lower the readout time.

The SITELLE Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer was successfully commissioned at the Canada France Hawaii Telescope starting in July 2015. Here we discuss the commissioning process, the outcome of the early tests on-sky as well as the ensuing work to optimize the modulation efficiency at large optical path difference and the image quality of the instrument.

The amplitudes and scales of spatial variations in the skylines can be a potential limit of the telescopes performance, because the study of the extremely faint objects requires a careful correction for the residual of the skylines if they are corrected. Using observations from the VLT/KMOS instrument, we have studied the spatial and temporal behavior of two faint skylines (10 to 80 times fainter than the strong skyline in the spectral window) and the effect of the skylines in the determination of the kinematics maps of distant galaxies. Using nine consecutives exposures of ten minutes. We found that the flux of the brighter skylines changes rapidly spatially and temporally, 5 to 10% and up to 15%, respectively. For the faint skyline, the fluctuations have a spatial and temporal amplitude up to 100%. The effect of the residual of the skyline on the velocity field of distant galaxies becomes dramatic when the emission line is faint (equivalent width equal to 15 A). All the kinematic information is lost. The shape and the centroid of the emission line change from spaxel to spaxel. This preliminary result needs to be extended; by continuing the simulation, in order to determine, the minimum flux that allows to recover of the kinematic information at different resolutions. Allowing to find the possible relation between spectral resolution and flux of the emission line. Our goal is to determine which is the best spectral resolution in the infrared to observe the distant galaxies with integral field spectrographs. Finding the best compromise between spectral resolution and the detection limit of the spectrograph.

Transmission spectroscopy facilitates the detection of molecules and/or clouds in the atmospheres of exoplanets. Such studies rely heavily on space-based or large ground-based observatories, as one needs to perform time-resolved, high signal-to-noise spectroscopy. The FORS2 instrument at ESO's Very Large Telescope is the obvious choice for performing such studies, and was indeed pioneering the field in 2010. After that, however, it was shown to suffer from systematic errors caused by the Longitudinal Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (LADC). This was successfully addressed, leading to a renewed interest for this instrument as shown by the number of proposals submitted to perform transmission spectroscopy of exoplanets. We present here the context, the problem and how we solved it, as well as the recent results obtained. We finish by providing tips for an optimum strategy to do transmission spectroscopy with FORS2, in the hope that FORS2 may become the instrument of choice for ground-based transmission spectroscopy of exoplanets.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is under construction and will be used to measure the expansion history of the Universe using the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) technique and the growth of structure using redshift-space distortions (RSD). The spectra of 30 million galaxies over 14000 sq deg will be measured over the course of the experiment. In order to provide spectroscopic targets for the DESI survey, we are carrying out a three-band (g,r,z ) imaging survey of the sky using the NOAO 4-m telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) and the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory (CTIO). At KPNO, we will use an upgraded version of the Mayall 4m telescope prime focus camera, Mosaic3, to carry out a z-band survey of the Northern Galactic Cap at declinations δ≥+30 degrees. By equipping an existing Dewar with four 4kx4k fully depleted CCDs manufactured by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), we increased the z-band throughput of the system by a factor of 1.6. These devices have the thickest active area fielded at a telescope. The Mosaic3 z-band survey will be complemented by g-band and r-band observations using the Bok telescope and 90 Prime imager on Kitt Peak. We describe the upgrade and performance of the Mosaic3 instrument and the scope of the northern survey.

FIFI-LS (the Field Imaging Far Infrared Line Spectrometer for SOFIA) was successfully commissioned in 2014 during six flights on SOFIA. The observed wavelengths are set by rotating reflective gratings. In flight these gratings and their rotating mechanisms are exposed to vibrations. To quantify these vibrations, an acceleration sensor was placed on the exterior of the instrument. Simultaneously, the angle sensor of the grating was read out to analyze the movement of the grating. Based on this data, lab measurements were conducted to evaluate the effect of the vibrations on the image quality of FIFI-LS. The submitted paper will present the measured data and show the results of the analysis.

In 2014 and 2015 the Multi-Object InfraRed Camera and Spectrograph (MOIRCS) instrument at the Subaru Telescope on Maunakea is underwent a significant modernization and upgrade project. We upgraded the two Hawaii2 detectors to Hawaii2-RG models, modernized the cryogenic temperature control system, and rewrote much of the instrument control software. The detector upgrade replaced the Hawaii2 detectors which use the Tohoku University Focal Plane Array Controller (TUFPAC) electronics with Hawaii2-RG detectors using SIDECAR ASIC (a fully integrated FPA controller system-on-a-chip) and a SAM interface card. We achieved an improvement in read noise by a factor of about 2 with this detector and electronics upgrade. The cryogenic temperature control upgrade focused on modernizing the components and making the procedures for warm up and cool down of the instrument safer. We have moved PID control loops out of the instrument control software and into Lakeshore model 336 cryogenic temperature controllers and have added interlocks on the warming systems to prevent overheating of the instrument. Much of the instrument control software has also been re-written. This was necessitated by the different interface to the detector electronics (ASIC and SAM vs. TUFPAC) and by the desire to modernize the interface to the telescope control software which has been updated to Subaru's "Gen2" system since the time of MOIRCS construction and first light. The new software is also designed to increase reliability of operation of the instrument, decrease overheads, and be easier for night time operators and support astronomers to use.

The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is an array of five imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, sensitive to cosmic gamma rays of energies between ~30 GeV and several tens of TeV. Four of them started operations in 2003 and their photomultiplier tube (PMT) cameras are currently undergoing a major upgrade, with the goals of improving the overall performance of the array and reducing the failure rate of the ageing systems. With the exception of the 960 PMTs, all components inside the camera have been replaced: these include the readout and trigger electronics, the power, ventilation and pneumatic systems and the control and data acquisition software. New designs and technical solutions have been introduced: the readout makes use of the NECTAr analog memory chip, which samples and stores the PMT signals and was developed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). The control of all hardware subsystems is carried out by an FPGA coupled to an embedded ARM computer, a modular design which has proven to be very fast and reliable. The new camera software is based on modern C++ libraries such as Apache Thrift, ØMQ and Protocol buffers, offering very good performance, robustness, flexibility and ease of development. The first camera was upgraded in 2015, the other three cameras are foreseen to follow in fall 2016. We describe the design, the performance, the results of the tests and the lessons learned from the first upgraded H.E.S.S. camera.

Polarization gratings (PGs) are a type of diffraction grating that take advantage of birefringent liquid crystal polymers to simultaneously act as a polarizing beam splitter and as a spectral dispersive element. Furthermore, PGs are capable of providing high diffraction efficiency (>90%) over a very broad wavelength range. These properties make PGs ideal for spectropolarimetry and/or high throughput, broad wavelength observations for a range of astronomical objects. Here we report on the design and on-sky testing of a prototype spectropolarimeter instrument that employs a PG optimized for operation from 500 nm to 900 nm. The prototype was mounted on a 16-inch telescope at the University of Toronto, where we carried out observations of the polarized twilight sky, a polarized standard star and two spectroscopic standard stars. Using these observations we demonstrate the PG's ability to measure linear polarization fraction and position angle, as well as recover spectra from astronomical objects.

The Gemini Observatory* remains committed to keeping its operational instrumentation competitive and serving the needs of its user community. Currently the observatory operates a 4 instruments + 1 AO system at each site. At Gemini North the GMOS-N, GNIRS, NIFS and NIRI instruments are offered supported by the ALTAIR AO system. In the south, GMOS-S, F-2, GPI and GSAOI are offered instrumentation and GeMS is the provided AO System. This paper reviews our strategy to keep our instrumentation suite competitive, examines both our current funded upgrade projects and our potential future enhancements. We summarize the work done and the results so far obtained within the instrument upgrade program.

The Robert Stobie Spectrograph is currently the main workhorse spectroscopic instrument on the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), which has been undergoing regular scientific operations since 2011. The visible beam of the RSS was designed to perform polarimetry in all of its modes, imaging and grating spectroscopy (with Multi Object Spectroscopy capability) from 3200 to 9000 Å. The polarimetric field of view is 4×8 arcmin. Initial early commissioning of the polarimetric modes was stalled in 2011 because a coupling fluid leak developed in the polarizing beamsplitter after less than a year of operation. As a result, it was decided to redesign the beamsplitter to use a different optical couplant. This was complicated by the unusual thermal expansion properties of the calcite optic, and by the necessity of aligning the individual elements in the beamsplitter mosaic (RSS is the first instrument to use a mosaic beamsplitter). Laboratory work selected a new couplant: a gel, Nye 451. Testing was completed with satisfactory results on a "sacrificial" calcite prism with the same geometry as an actual mosaic element. A successful assembly was performed and the beamsplitter was re-installed in SALT in mid-2015. We describe results from the renewed commissioning efforts to characterize polarimetry from SALT and include some early performance verification science.

The High Resolution Spectrograph (HRS) on the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is a dual beam, fiber-fed echelle spectrograph providing high resolution capabilities to the SALT observing community. We describe the available data reduction tools and the procedures put in place for regular monitoring of the data quality from the spectrograph. Data reductions are carried out through the pyhrs package. The data characteristics and instrument stability are reported as part of the SALT Dashboard to help monitor the performance of the instrument.

The Kyoto Tridimensional Spectrograph II (Kyoto 3DII) is an optical integral field spectrograph mounted on the Subaru telescope as a PI-type instrument. Used with AO188, Kyoto 3DII provides us unique opportunities of optical Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) with adaptive optics (AO). While AO works better in redder wavelength regions, quantum efficiency of the previous CCD was low there with optimization for a wider wavelength coverage. To optimize Kyoto 3DII to AO observations, we have newly installed the red-sensitive Hamamatsu fully depleted CCD, which enhances the system efficiency by a factor of ~2 in the red wavelength range. Fringes are dramatically reduced, and the readout noise drops to 3:2-3:4e- about two times smaller than previous, due to refrigerator and readout system. With these improvements, we carried out engineering and scientific observations in September 2015, February and March 2016. We measured the system efficiency using a standard star, and confirmed the successful improvement of the system efficiency. We observed galactic nuclei of nearby galaxies in the Natural Guide Star (NGS) and the Laser Guide Star (LGS) modes. We found the spatial resolution of ~0.1′′ FWHM using a 9.5-magnitude NGS, and ~0.2 - 0:4′′ in LGS mode. Together with the AO resolution, improved efficiency opens a new window for Kyoto 3DII to carry out high resolution optical IFS targeting faint objects such as high-redshift galaxies as well as faint lines such as [OI] λ6300° A and absorption lines of nearby objects.

The f/8 RC-Cassegrain Focus of the Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, hosts two new instruments: COSMOS, a multi-object spectrograph in the visible wavelength range (350 – 1030nm), and ARCoIRIS, a NIR cross-dispersed spectrograph featuring 6 spectral orders spanning 0.8 – 2.45μm. Here we describe a calibration lamp unit designed to deliver the required illumination at the telescope focal plane for both instruments. These requirements are: (1) an f/8 beam of light covering a spot of 92mm diameter (or 10 arcmin) for a wavelength range of 0.35μm through 2.5μm and (2) no saturation of flat-field calibrations for the minimal exposure times permitted by each instrument, and (3) few saturated spectral lines when using the wavelength calibration lamps for the instruments. To meet these requirements this unit contains an adjustable quartz halogen lamp for flat-field calibrations, and one hollow cathode lamp and four penray lamps for wavelength calibrations. The wavelength calibration lamps are selected to provide optimal spectral coverage for the instrument mounted and can be used individually or in sets. The device designed is based on an 8-inch diameter integrating sphere, the output of which is optimized to match the f/8 calibration input delivery system which is a refractive system based on fused-silica lenses. We describe the optical design, the opto-mechanical design, the electronic control and give results of the performance of the system.

The FastCam instrument platform, jointly developed by the IAC and the UPCT, allows, in real-time, acquisition, selection and storage of images with a resolution that reaches the diffraction limit of medium-sized telescopes. FastCam incorporates a specially designed software package to analyse series of tens of thousands of images in parallel with the data acquisition at the telescope. Wide FastCam is a new instrument that, using the same software for data acquisition, does not look for lucky imaging but fast observations in a much larger field of view. Here we describe the commissioning process and first observations with Wide FastCam at the Telescopio Carlos Sanchez (TCS) in the Observatorio del Teide.

The coating on the exposed surface of the 810 mm diameter first element of the MegaCam wide-field corrector at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) was found to be degraded in the fall of 2014. An investigation showed that the coating was, in fact, damaged over a large part of the exposed surface and was causing major scattering, severely degrading the performance of the instrument. The coating was subsequently removed from the lens by CFHT, restoring the majority of the instrument performance. The investigation of the degradation and the procedure used to remove the coating will be described in this paper.

We present the results of the upgrade of the spectrograph detector in the integral field spectrograph, OSIRIS. OSIRIS is a near-infrared (1 to 2.5 microns) integral field spectrograph on the Keck I telescope. This instrument produces up to 3,000 spectra simultaneously over a contiguous rectangular field of view with a spectral resolution of ~3,800. OSIRIS works with the Keck Adaptive Optics system to achieve diffraction-limited spatial resolution and has four plate scales ranging from 0.02 to 0.10 arcseconds. At first light in 2005, the spectrograph portion of the instrument was equipped with a Rockwell Hawaii-2 detector. We have now upgraded this to a Teledyne Hawaii-2RG (H2RG) with lower read noise, lower dark current, and higher quantum efficiency. In addition to the upgraded detector, we also mounted the detector head on a linear stage, allowing the position of the detector to be accurately adjusted along the optical path when the instrument is at cryogenic temperatures (~80 K). This reduced the number of cool downs required to put the detector image plane at the spectrograph camera focus and adjust any residual tip/tilt of the detector image plane. We present the results of commissioning the new detector and the improved sensitivities of the OSIRIS instrument due to this upgrade.

NIRSPEC is a 1-5 μm high- and medium-resolution echelle spectrograph for the Keck II telescope, delivered in 1999 by the UCLA Infrared Laboratory (PI: Ian McLean). The instrument will be upgraded to replace detectors and electronics in the spectrograph (SPEC) and slit-viewing camera (SCAM). The existing SCAM design is limited to the 1-2.5 μm regime and optimized for the PICNIC 256x256 40-μm-pixel array. The upgrade of the SCAM to a Teledyne H1RG 1024x1024 18-μm-pixel array will allow imaging of the slit from 1-5 μm, increasing observing efficiency in the L and M bands. The extension of SCAM’s wavelength coverage requires re-optimization of its optical design. We present a proof-of-concept optical design of the new SCAM, optimized for a replacement detector. We discuss lens choices, design constraints, and the addition of blocking filters to mitigate saturation issues related to the high background levels in the thermal infrared.

GMOS-S has been recently upgraded with Hamamatsu deep depletion CCDs, replacing the original EEV detector array. The new CCDs have superior quantum efficiency (QE) at wavelengths longer than 680nm, with significant sensitivity extending beyond 1 micron. Furthermore, the fringing level in GMOS-S data is now much lower due to the much thicker CCDs, additionally improving delivered sensitivity above that afforded by quantum efficiency alone. Soon after the Hamamatsu CCDs were installed in June 2014, some issues were noticed that impacted the ability to execute some science programs. In October 2015 the ARC controller electronics were upgraded and a cable was replaced, and since November 2015 GMOS-S has again been taking science data with the Hamamatsu detectors with no sign of the previous limitations. We present the results of the GMOS-S on-sky commissioning of the Hamamatsu detector array, and provide an update on the status of the GMOS-N portion of the project.

The Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) is able to offer an F/11 Nasmyth focal station with an easy mount for small devices or compact instruments. The slit masks at the focal plane of the LRS spectrograph can be removed in few minutes from the selector stage. A FoV of ~9x9arcmin² is available and a small instrument can be mounted instead of the slit on a mechanical interface of 240x125mm. The size of the instrument along the optical axis is limited by the support of the collimation lens of the spectrograph. This solution has already been used for small devices like a CCD camera or a SH sensor and a compact Hamamatsu photometer. Furthermore from 2016 it will host the folding optical relay for the GIARPS Instrument. This interface is an opportunity to test new instruments, prototypes or demonstrators in a not invasive or time consuming manner at a 4m class telescope.

We introduce a new method named as “weighted average method" to reduce atmospheric noise on the images in ground based mid-infrared observations. The main idea of this method is to find a sky frame corresponded to an object frame by superposition of several sky frames, instead of the conventional chop-and-nod observation technique. This is very useful not only for improving the observing efficiency but also for taking images of extended objects larger than the chopping throw. This method is also valid for reducing data taken by the chopping with insufficient frequency. In this paper we will report the details of the weighted average method and demonstrate its performance against practical observing data.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a 2.5m infrared telescope built into a Boeing 747 SP. In 2014 SOFIA reached its Full Operational Capability milestone and nowadays takes off about three times a week to observe the infrared sky from altitudes above most of the atmosphere’s water vapor content. An actively controlled 352mm SiC secondary mirror is used for infrared chopping with peak-to-peak amplitudes of up to 10 arcmin and chop frequencies of up to 20Hz and also as actuator for fast pointing corrections. The Swiss-made Secondary Mirror Mechanism (SMM) is a complex, highly integrated and compact flexure based mechanism that has been performing with remarkable reliability during recent years. Above mentioned capabilities are provided by the Tilt Chopper Mechanism (TCM) which is one of the two stages of the SMM. In addition the SMM is also used to establish a collimated telescope and to adjust the telescope focus depending on the structure’s temperature which ranges from about 40°C at takeoff in Palmdale, CA to about −40◦C in the stratosphere. This is achieved with the Focus Center Mechanism (FCM) which is the base stage of the SMM on which the TCM is situated. Initially the TCM was affected by strong vibrations at about 300 Hz which led to unacceptable image smearing. After some adjustments to the PID-type controller it was finally decided to develop a completely new control algorithm in state space. This pole placement controller matches the closed loop system poles to those of a Bessel filter with a corner frequency of 120 Hz for optimal square wave behavior. To reduce noise present on the position and current sensors and to estimate the velocity a static gain Kalman Filter was designed and implemented. A system inherent delay is incorporated in the Kalman filter design and measures were applied to counteract the actuators’ hysteresis. For better performance over the full operational temperature range and to represent an amplitude dependent non-linearity the underlying model of the Kalman filter adapts in real-time to those two parameters. This highly specialized controller was developed over the course of years and only the final design is introduced here. The main intention of this contribution is to present the currently achieved performance of the SOFIA chopper over the full amplitude, frequency, and temperature range. Therefore a range of data gathered during in-flight tests aboard SOFIA is displayed and explained. The SMM’s three main performance parameters are the transition time between two chop positions, the stability of the Secondary Mirror when exposed to the low pressures, low temperatures, aerodynamic, and aeroacoustic excitations present when the SOFIA observatory operates in the stratosphere at speeds of up to 850 km/h, and finally the closed-loop bandwidth available for fast pointing corrections.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a heavily modified Boeing 747SP aircraft, accommodating a 2.5m infrared telescope. This airborne observation platform takes astronomers to flight altitudes of up to 13.7 km (45,000ft) and therefore allows an unobstructed view of the infrared universe at wavelengths between 0.3 m and 1600 m. SOFIA is currently completing its fourth cycle of observations and utilizes eight different imaging and spectroscopic science instruments. New instruments for SOFIAs cycle 4 observations are the High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera-plus (HAWC+) and the Focal Plane Imager (FPI+). The latter is an integral part of the telescope assembly and is used on every SOFIA flight to ensure precise tracking on the desired targets. The FPI+ is used as a visual-light photometer in its role as facility science instrument. Since the upgrade of the FPI camera and electronics in 2013, it uses a thermo-electrically cooled science grade EM-CCD sensor inside a commercial-off-the-shelf Andor camera. The back-illuminated sensor has a peak quantum efficiency of 95% and the dark current is as low as 0.01 e-/pix/sec. With this new hardware the telescope has successfully tracked on 16th magnitude stars and thus the sky coverage, e.g. the area of sky that has suitable tracking stars, has increased to 99%. Before its use as an integrated tracking imager, the same type of camera has been used as a standalone diagnostic tool to analyze the telescope pointing stability at frequencies up to 200 Hz (imaging with 400 fps). These measurements help to improve the telescope pointing control algorithms and therefore reduce the image jitter in the focal plane. Science instruments benefit from this improvement with smaller image sizes for longer exposure times. The FPI has also been used to support astronomical observations like stellar occultations by the dwarf planet Pluto and a number of exoplanet transits. Especially the observation of the occultation events benefits from the high camera sensitivity, fast readout capability and the low read noise and it was possible to achieve high time resolution on the photometric light curves. This paper will give an overview of the development from the standalone diagnostic camera to the upgraded guiding/tracking camera, fully integrated into the telescope, while still offering the diagnostic capabilities and finally to the use as a facility science instrument on SOFIA.

The recent availability of large format near-infrared detectors with sub-election readout noise is revolutionizing our approach to wavefront sensing for adaptive optics. However, as with all near-infrared detector technologies, challenges exist in moving from the comfort of the laboratory test-bench into the harsh reality of the observatory environment. As part of the broader adaptive optics program for the GMT, we are developing a near-infrared Lucky Imaging camera for operational deployment at the ANU 2.3 m telescope at Siding Spring Observatory. The system provides an ideal test-bed for the rapidly evolving Selex/SAPHIRA eAPD technology while providing scientific imaging at angular resolution rivalling the Hubble Space Telescope at wavelengths λ = 1.3-2.5 μm.

The LBT (Large Binocular Telescope), located at about 3200m on Mount Graham (Tucson, Arizona) is an innovative project undertaken by institutions from Europe and USA. LINC-NIRVANA is an instrument which provides MCAO (Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics) and interferometry, combining the light from the two 8.4m telescopes coherently. This configuration offers 23m-baseline optical resolution and the sensitivity of a 12m mirror, with a 2 arc-minute diffraction limited field of view. The integration, alignment and testing of such a big instrument requires a well-organized choreography and AIV planning which has been developed in a hierarchical way. The instrument is divided in largely independent systems, and all of them consist of various subsystems. Every subsystem integration ends with a verification test and an acceptance procedure. When a certain number of systems are finished and accepted, the instrument AIV phase starts. This hierarchical approach allows testing at early stages with simple setups. The philosophy is to have internally aligned subsystems to be integrated in the instrument optical path, and extrapolate to finally align the instrument to the Gregorian bent foci of the telescope. The alignment plan was successfully executed in Heidelberg at MPIA facilities, and now the instrument is being re-integrated at the LBT over a series of 11 campaigns along the year 2016. After its commissioning, the instrument will offer MCAO sensing with the LBT telescope. The interferometric mode will be implemented in a future update of the instrument. This paper focuses on the alignment done in the clean room at the LBT facilities for the collimator, camera, and High-layer Wavefront Sensor (HWS) during March and April 2016. It also summarizes the previous work done in preparation for shipping and arrival of the instrument to the telescope. Results are presented for every step, and a final section outlines the future work to be done in next runs until its final commissioning.

The Adaptive Optics Lucky Imager, AOLI, is an instrument developed to deliver the highest spatial resolution ever obtained in the visible, 20 mas, from ground-based telescopes. In AOLI a new philosophy of instrumental prototyping has been applied, based on the modularization of the subsystems. This modular concept offers maximum flexibility regarding the instrument, telescope or the addition of future developments.

In the framework of the SHARK project the visible channel is a novel instrument synergic to the NIR channel and exploiting the performances of the LBT XAO at visible wavelengths. The status of the project is presented together with the design study of this innovative instrument optimized for high contrast imaging by means of high frame rate. Its expected results will be presented comparing the simulations with the real data of the “Forerunner” experiment taken at 630nm.