Faint skylines in the near-infrared: observational constraint for IFU instruments

H. Flores; M. Rodrigues; M. Puech; Y. Yang; F. Hammer

doi:10.1117/12.2232088

30 November 2016 Faint skylines in the near-infrared: observational constraint for IFU instruments

H. Flores, M. Rodrigues, M. Puech, Y. Yang, F. Hammer

Proceedings Volume 9908, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI; 99082A (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232088
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2016, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Abstract

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.

Citation Download Citation

H. Flores, M. Rodrigues, M. Puech, Y. Yang, and F. Hammer "Faint skylines in the near-infrared: observational constraint for IFU instruments", Proc. SPIE 9908, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI, 99082A (30 November 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232088

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