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Cross-dispersion Project at the McMath-Pierce...(1Sep94) Solar-stellar Spectrograph (from NSO, NOAO Newsletter No. 39, 1 September 1994) The mechanical design for this major upgrade to our nighttime facility has been completed. Machining of the parts is now underway. The housing for the multi-element transfer lens has been completed. The optical components for the transfer lens are being manufactured by Tucson Optical Research Corporation (TORC) and should be completed in about six weeks. The initial test results for the large format 1024 3072 CCD arrays that are being delivered by the NOAO Instrumentation Program have proven disappointing in terms of resolving high spatial frequencies. The limiting resolution is degraded by a factor of 1.8 compared to the resolution achieved by our current TI 800 800 CCD. Previous tests at the coude feed found the same result. The source of the degradation is unknown but some tests to identify the cause are proceeding. Since high spectral resolution is a scientific driver for our solar-stellar program, we cannot accept these chips until the resolution problem is solved. We will keep you informed of progress on this issue. Mark Giampapa
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