Commissioning the dual etalon Fabry-Perot modes of the Robert Stobie spectrograph on the Southern African Large Telescope

T. B. Williams; E. Romero-Colmenero; P. Vaisanen; K. Browne; T. Makananise; A. Koeslag; C. Hettlage; E. Wiid; E. Simon; M. P. Smith; C. Pietraszewski

doi:10.1117/12.2232674

9 August 2016 Commissioning the dual etalon Fabry-Perot modes of the Robert Stobie spectrograph on the Southern African Large Telescope

T. B. Williams, E. Romero-Colmenero, P. Vaisanen, K. Browne, T. Makananise, A. Koeslag, C. Hettlage, E. Wiid, E. Simon, M. P. Smith, C. Pietraszewski

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9908, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI; 99086N (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232674
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2016, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Abstract

The Robert Stobie Spectrograph (RSS) on the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) includes a Fabry-Pérot system that provides spectroscopic imaging over the 8 arcmin diameter science field of view, covering the wavelength range 430-860 nm with spectral resolutions ranging from 300 to10000 in four resolution modes. The higher resolution modes require the simultaneous use of two etalons. We discuss the complications encountered in implementing the dual etalon modes, the mechanical and operational solutions that have been devised, and the first science verification results. We also describe an efficient method for adjusting the parallelism of etalons in situ, and the use of the dual etalon system to determine the transmission of the individual etalons. The new dual etalon system was commissioned in late 2015 and is now producing useful scientific observations.

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T. B. Williams, E. Romero-Colmenero, P. Vaisanen, K. Browne, T. Makananise, A. Koeslag, C. Hettlage, E. Wiid, E. Simon, M. P. Smith, and C. Pietraszewski "Commissioning the dual etalon Fabry-Perot modes of the Robert Stobie spectrograph on the Southern African Large Telescope", Proc. SPIE 9908, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VI, 99086N (9 August 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232674

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