NOAO Major Instrumentation
Program: Long Range
Planning
NOAO Users’ Committee
David Sprayberry
October 6, 2006
Outline
•
•
•
•
•
Quick review of current projects
Motivations
NOAO Scientific Staff process
Ideas generated
“The Way Forward” ...
NEWFIRM
• Optical Tests → great results!
– Tribute to entire team:
– Design, Fabrication, Assembly
and Test all successful.
•
•
•
•
Next Cold Cycle this month
Vendors ...
First light: Jan
SV Planning
MONSOON
•
•
•
•
•
Backlog cleared
QUOTA working
DECam Review positive
ODI Selection
Development work
continuing
– ODI
– Torrent
• New interest cropping up
all over...
SAM: SOAR Adaptive Optics
Module
• PDR passed in Dec
• “Mini-reviews” since:
– WFS optics
– Module/structure
• Parts in fab, science
channel optics well along
• Science channel/NGS
delivery late 2007
• LGS delivery late 2008
MIP LRP: Motivations
•
•
•
•
Finishing NEWFIRM
Last report of this Committee
NSF Senior Review
MIP Activities Next ~2-3 years:
– ODI in North, SAM in South, MONSOON both
– Begin fleshing out 1 or 2 concepts for new
instruments
– Could push development further if partners appear
Scientific Staff Input
• IPAC meetings over last 12 months
– Including presentations of ideas
• All-staff meeting September 12
– Reviewed likely context
– Summarized ideas
– Much useful feedback
• Context...
Ground capabilities: 8-12 m
• Strong emphasis on high spatial resolution
– Complex AO systems, arcmin to arcsec FOV
• Highly multiplexed spectroscopy
– Keck DEIMOS, MOSFIRE (2010)
– HET VIRUS (2009)
– VLT VIMOS, KMOS (2011), HAWK-I (2007?), XShooter (date?)
– Gemini FLAMINGOS-2 (2007), WFMOS (?)
– LBT Lucifer (2007, 2008)
• Widefield optical imaging
– Magellan IMACS
– Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam
Ground: 4-m, NOAO / AURA
• Emphasis on improved spatial resolution
– WIYN TTM, SOAR SAM --> instrument
feeds
• Building on widefield optical imaging strength
– ODI (2009)
– DEC (2009)
• Adding time domain
– LSST (2013)
• Extending frequency domain
– ALMA rampup 2007-2011, full ops 2012
– FOV ~10-60” at 0.005-0.25 “/pixel
Space capabilities 2011
• Hubble: retired 2010
– Huge archive, diffr limited optical images
• Spitzer: out of gas 2009, out of cash 2011
– Huge archive, mid/far IR, ~1-10”/pix images, low res
spectra
• Herschel: just finished FIR mission
• Planck: finished COBE followup mission
• GALEX, Chandra, XMM: missions ended 2007-2010
• GAIA: just launched, 5 yr MW astrometry mission
• SOFIA: 2 yrs full ops, mid/far IR
• JWST: two years from launch…standing by…
Survey Landscape in 2010
Ground-based surveys:
Space-based surveys:
• SDSS all done (?)
• NEWFIRM/WFCAM/WIRCAM,
PANSTARRS/VISTA operating
• WFMOS/HSC under construction?
• LSST under construction
• WISE in orbit? (2008?) 3.5-23mm
• Herschel in orbit? (2007?) 57-670mm
• GLAST in orbit? (2007?) GRB
• Other stuff more uncertain
Science follow-up of imaging survey products:
1) Wide-field spectroscopic surveys
2) Rare-object spectroscopy
3) Variable objects
Arjun Dey
The Yin and Yang of
4 meter instruments
Instruments offering an order Expensive instruments
of magnitude gain rank well. have enormous inertia.
New technologies spawn
new instruments.
Niche instruments may have
“killer app” but still attract
limited support.
New technologies
increase risk.
General purpose
capabilities attract
universal support but
lack “killer app”.
No guaranteed funds for new Good ideas attract
instruments in a flat budget. funding.
SOIREE: Single Object O/IR
Extremely Efficient spectrograph
• 0.35 < λ < 1.6 μm
– K more costly but possible
– Cool how much for λ range?
Efficiency gains from:
•VPH gratings
•Modern dichroics
•Optimized coatings, detectors
• R ~ 3000
• Throughput > 30%
• Rapid faint-object acquisition
(slit-viewing guider? New
TCS?)
• Use O & IR modes together or
separately; 3+ channels
• Slit length ~ 1’
– ADC? Need trade study
– N&S? ‘scope or internal?
Possible science applications:
• Redshifts of bright, rare/variable targets where wide wavelength coverage is
necessary (GRBs, high-z QSOs, SNe)
• Reverberation mapping of QSOs (monitoring of continuum and broad lines - can
use same line over broad z range)
• Redshifts of objects with breaks near 1mm (z~1.5 luminous galaxies, z~7-8 bright
QSOs)
• Temporal monitoring of OIR spectra of core-collapse Sne (large l coverage =>
better theoretical constraints)
• Multi-wavelength monitoring of variable sources (CVs, weird stars, new - LSST
- classes of variables)
• Searches for very cool (L,T,Y) brown dwarfs
• Multiwavelength spectral atlas of Galactic stars (WISE/Herschel/JWST)
• Low-res Spectral Atlas of nearby (SDSS) galaxies for population synthesis
Arjun Dey
4CES: 4-meter Cryogenic Echelle
Spectrograph
•
•
•
•
1 < λ < 5 μm
R ~ 50,000
Slit 0.8” x 15”
High Throughput
– Si immersion grating
– Single 2k x 2k array
Schematic of an accretion disk around a
T Tauri pre-main sequence object
• IR slit-viewer for
acquisition & guiding
• Minimize modes,
parts = minimize cost
High Spectral Resolution
Science
•
•
•
•
•
•
Origin of elements of life
Physics of star formation regions
Accretion disks
Chemistry of the ISM, especially H3+
Masses for very low mass stars
Astrochemistry of elementary life molecules, C2H2,
HCN, …
• Flows in circumstellar envelopes
• Unique ISM, PN diagnostics: H2, forbidden lines,…
• Magnetic fields, rotation, Doppler imaging,…
“Niche” Instrument Ideas
Name
λ (μm) Nature
FOV
Scale, R
Speckle
0.5-1
5”
0.015”, 10 SOAR
5’
0.5”,
~1000
0.3”, 10
HR
Imager
STUFFIS 0.4-0.9 FP
Imager
3CPO
2-5
BB
Imager
OVNI2
1-2.5
NB
Imager
10’
17’x2 0.5”, 150
Scope
SOAR
Mayall,
Blanco?
Mayall,
Blanco?
A Few Observations
• Not all these ideas are mutually exclusive:
– Ex: Speckle and/or STUFFIS are cheap enough
that they could easily be done with another
– Ex: 3CPO and/or OVNI should be quicker, could be
phased around/ahead of a larger project
• Only Speckle & STUFFIS are scope-specific
– Others could in principle go anywhere
• None of these are wide FOV:
– Cost driver
– Covered with ODI, DEC, NEWFIRM, Hydra
Costs, Generally
• Costs not well-known for most
– Plan to do concept studies of 1 or 2 in FY07
• NOAO/MIP not expected to have sufficient
resources to build a new instrument alone
– Except for Speckle or STUFFIS
• Partnership(s) with other institution(s) will
be absolutely necessary
• Partner interests will strongly affect choice
of project
Partnership Models
• OSIRIS, FLAMINGOS: University builds
instrument & turns it over to NOAO
• DECam: Partner consortium designs & builds
instrument, NOAO contributes some tech
support and telescope improvements
• HRNIRS: NOAO and UF shared labor and
capital ~equally
• NEWFIRM: NOAO provides most of the
resources, U Md contributes minority shares
What We Need From YOU
• Feedback on these instrument concepts
– Scientific impact
– Utility to community
• Suggestions of other concepts
• Help lining up partners with resources!