Previous Article
Next Article
Table of Contents

Availability of IRS for August-January: Good News, Bad News (1Mar96)
(from CTIO, NOAO Newsletter No. 45, March 1996)

As announced in NOAO Newsletter No. 44, the CTIO infrared spectrometer
IRS will be optically upgraded to work with the new 4-m f/14 secondary
and the existing 1.5-m f/13 secondary. This will provide improved
performance at the 4-m and eliminate a time-consuming top end change at
the 1.5-m. This is primarily a change in cold foreoptics. The image
scale at the slit will remain unchanged, with the a two pixel slit size
at the 4-m being 0.6". With the implementation of tip-tilt image
stabilization, slit losses should be greatly reduced. The project
schedule has been moved forward from our previous expectations. The IRS
will be out of service October-November 1996 for this upgrade. This
means an abbreviated schedule for the IRS in the upcoming semester:
late August and September at f/30, December and January at f/14. The
good news is that this effort will produce a better instrument well
matched to an improved telescope.

Richard Elston, Gabriel Perez

Previous Article
Next Article
Table of Contents