THE MULTI-OBJECT, FIBER-FED SPECTROGRAPHS FOR THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY AND THE BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 (United States)
- Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101 (United States)
- Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
- UC Observatories and Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, 375 Interdisciplinary Sciences Building (ISB) Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 09195 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 (United States)
- Apache Point Observatory, Sunspot, NM 88349 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106 (United States)
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States)
We present the design and performance of the multi-object fiber spectrographs for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and their upgrade for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Originally commissioned in Fall 1999 on the 2.5 m aperture Sloan Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, the spectrographs produced more than 1.5 million spectra for the SDSS and SDSS-II surveys, enabling a wide variety of Galactic and extra-galactic science including the first observation of baryon acoustic oscillations in 2005. The spectrographs were upgraded in 2009 and are currently in use for BOSS, the flagship survey of the third-generation SDSS-III project. BOSS will measure redshifts of 1.35 million massive galaxies to redshift 0.7 and Ly{alpha} absorption of 160,000 high redshift quasars over 10,000 deg{sup 2} of sky, making percent level measurements of the absolute cosmic distance scale of the universe and placing tight constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. The twin multi-object fiber spectrographs utilize a simple optical layout with reflective collimators, gratings, all-refractive cameras, and state-of-the-art CCD detectors to produce hundreds of spectra simultaneously in two channels over a bandpass covering the near-ultraviolet to the near-infrared, with a resolving power R = {lambda}/FWHM {approx} 2000. Building on proven heritage, the spectrographs were upgraded for BOSS with volume-phase holographic gratings and modern CCD detectors, improving the peak throughput by nearly a factor of two, extending the bandpass to cover 360 nm < {lambda} < 1000 nm, and increasing the number of fibers from 640 to 1000 per exposure. In this paper we describe the original SDSS spectrograph design and the upgrades implemented for BOSS, and document the predicted and measured performances.
- OSTI ID:
- 22122888
- Journal Information:
- Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 146, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1538-3881
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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