Based on phase retrieval of defocused point source images from JWST commissioning, routine maintenance, and science data, we characterize components of the JWST OTE wavefront error variations over a wide range of time scales, including the accumulation of segment pose changes (tilt events) over days and weeks of typical wavefront control cycles, smooth drifts over hours and days, oscillation due to thermal cycling of the ISIM Electronics Compartment heaters with periods of a few minutes, and mechanical vibration modes with periods ~1 second and less. We extract the spatial and temporal forms of the detected WFE variations and explore correlation with relevant observatory telemetry data, including reaction wheel rotation speeds, IEC heater panel temperatures, and spacecraft attitude. This analysis extends the initial performance characterization during JWST commissioning and is intended to enhance the understanding and utility of JWST observations, as well as to provide more detailed in-flight characterization of optical stability for evaluation of integrated modeling and insight for the design and development of future observatories.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched on December 25, 2021, and its optical performance in orbit has been even better than predicted pre-flight. The static wavefront error (WFE) is less than half the value specified for the requirement of having diffraction-limited image quality at 2 microns in the NIRCam shortwave channel, enabling the observatory to deliver both sharper images and higher sensitivity than anticipated. In addition to the excellent image quality, the optical stability has also exceeded expectations, both in terms of high-frequency dynamic contributions (which would be perceived as part of “static WFE”) and in terms of drifts over minutes, hours, and days. Stability over long timescales is critical for several important science cases, including exoplanet transit spectroscopy and coronagraphy. JWST’s stability success was achieved through detailed design and testing, with several important lessons learned for future observatories, especially the Habitable Worlds Observatory that is expected to need even higher levels of stability. We review the stability architecture, how it was technologically demonstrated, the ground test results and improvements, the on-orbit results, and the lessons learned.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a segmented deployable telescope, currently operating at L2. The telescope utilizes 6 degrees of freedom for adjustment of the Secondary Mirror (SM) and 7 degrees of freedom for adjustment of each of its 18 segments in the Primary Mirror (PM). After deployment, the PM segments and the SM arrived in their correct optical positions to within a ~1 mm, with accordingly large wavefront errors. A Wavefront Sensing and Controls (WFSC) process was executed to adjust each of these optical elements in order to correct the deployment errors and produce diffraction-limited images across the entire science field. This paper summarizes the application of the WFSC process.
Segmented-mirror telescopes such as JWST and Keck provide a particular challenge when first pointed to the sky: to access a suitably isolated star with which to align the mirror segments, one must first determine the sky location to which the telescope is pointed. Prior to stacking, the primary mirror segments each produce a separate image of the sky; the expected result is a confusing image in which the star field is convolved with the randomly pointed segments so that each star appears multiple times. To establish the initial sky pointing of JWST, we have developed a pair of novel and complementary approaches for identifying the field. The first approach uses image pairs in which a single primary mirror segment is tilted from its initial pointing by a small amount. This motion of the segment produces a corresponding motion of the stellar images from that segment, allowing us to resolve the ambiguity between the array of stellar images and the array of segment images. The second performs a pattern match within a single image to identify the repeating pattern of the segment array (i.e., the star pattern in the field of view) which can then be matched against an astrometric catalog. Both algorithms produce a resulting array of star positions from which the astrometry.net engine can identify the sky location. We describe the application of these algorithms to both simulated JWST NIRCam images and actual images acquired with MOSFIRE on Keck I, explain how we employed these approaches during the initial stage of JWST primary mirror commissioning, and speculate on future applications for mirrors with more segments.
Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is the first of the future generation of massively multiplexed spectroscopic facilities. MSE is designed to enable transformative science, being completely dedicated to large-scale multi-object spectroscopic surveys. MSE’s conceptual design includes an 11.25 m aperture telescope which feeds 4,332 fibers over a wide 1.52 square degree field of view. Its spectrographs will have the capabilities to observe at a range of spectral resolutions, from R~3,000 to R~40,000, with all spectral resolutions available at all times and across the entire field. As a dedicated survey facility, MSE must be able to efficiently execute a wide variety of scientific programs at the same time. Here we describe continued planning to execute MSE’s Design Reference Survey, an exercise to plan for and simulate a sample of potential first-generation science programs that exercise the design parameters of the spectroscopic facility.
As the crisis of climate change affects more people every year and leads to more severe weather patterns with unprecedented socio-economical consequence, all actors on the planet need to understand their responsibility and contribute to solving this generational problem. To tackle this issue, individuals and corporations first need to assess their carbon footprint, which then represents the groundwork for the future implementation of significant changes required to reduce that footprint. We present the carbon emissions attributed to the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) for the year 2019. We partnered with CarbonBuddy and followed their method to break down the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of various activities at CFHT for the entire year of 2019: air travel in and out of state, ground vehicle usage, electricity consumption, and other fossil fuel utilization. The total GHG emissions of CFHT for the year 2019 amount to about 749 tons of CO2 equivalent, which corresponds to more than 16 tons per employee. About 63% of the emissions are related to electricity usage at the summit facility, about 25% to out-of-state travel, about 6% to the use of our fleet of vehicles, and about 5% to electricity usage at headquarters. We show that significant improvements have occurred in the recent past at CFHT, with the installation of solar panels and a remarkable reduction in electricity consumption at headquarters. We list suggestions to further decrease the GHG emissions in the short to long term: offset current emissions by support local projects, invest in more efficient equipment, and establish environmentally friendly habits. The fundamental work presented will facilitate the official planning at CFHT for a drastic reduction in GHG emissions with the goal to meet the objectives laid out in the 2015 Paris Accord. It will also support the design of the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE), the future transformation of CFHT, and allow the project to seize this opportunity and incorporate the fight against climate change as one of its core missions. By choosing to implement those changes, CFHT and MSE can become part of the solution to climate change and lead the way, locally and in the world of astronomy.
Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is the first of the future generation of massively multiplexed spectroscopic 11.25m mirror facility on a recycled site. MSE is designed to enable transformative science, being completely dedicated to large-scale multi-object spectroscopic surveys, each studying thousands to millions of astrophysical objects. MSE’s transformational potential lies in answering numerous scientific questions and finding new puzzles. Its success will depend in part on its ability to detect large populations of faint sources, from those responsible for reionization to merging galaxies at cosmic dawn and the stellar populations of nearby dwarf galaxies. This capability is set, in part, by our ability to remove the sky from the target spectra. Here we describe the initial steps in a threeyear long effort to develop a model of the Maunakea skies comparable to the model developed by ESO of the southern ESO sites. The model will be used to derive best-practices (e.g. the number of required fibers given specific observing conditions, and required sensitivity) and sky subtraction algorithms to achieve << 1% sky subtraction accuracy
Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is the first of the future generation of massively multiplexed spectroscopic facilities. MSE is designed to enable transformative science, being completely dedicated to large-scale multi-object spectroscopic surveys, each studying thousands to millions of astrophysical objects. MSE uses an 11.25 m aperture telescope to feed 4,332 fibers over a wide 1.52 square degree field of view. It will have the capabilities to observe at a range of spectral resolutions, from R~3,000 to R~40,000, with all spectral resolutions available at all times and across the entire field. As a dedicated survey facility, MSE must be able to efficiently execute a wide variety of scientific programs at the same time. Here we describe plans to execute MSE’s Design Reference Survey, an exercise to plan for and simulate a sample of potential first-generation science programs that exercise the design parameters of the spectroscopic facility and identify any performance and functional deficiencies of the MSE Observatory. With this exercise we have begun to lay out a detailed plan of how to schedule and execute observations, including calibration data, in the first five years of the MSE project.
Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is the only dedicated, >10 m class, multi-object facility under development on the best site in the Northern Hemisphere. MSE is designed to simultaneously obtain 4,332 spectra in three resolution modes in the optical and NIR. The design attributes of a wide field of view, a high multiplex capability, and the use of optical fibers to transport the light from the prime focus to two suites of spectrographs, mandate an efficient and precise science calibration process to account for the throughput and imaging variations between the astronomical targets at the detectors. To achieve MSE's science goals, the calibration process must enable accurate sky subtraction, wavelength correction, and spectrophotometry. In this paper, we continue our discussion on the science calibration requirements and procedures, and provide an update to the adopted calibration strategy, including likely operational features and hardware. This paper particularly focuses on two new aspects of MSE analysis, ghost behavior of the wide field corrector and the possible impact of satellite constellations on MSE observations.
We discuss the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) Acquisition and Guide (A and G) System conceptual focal plane hardware and operational requirements and pay detailed attention to the A and G system’s three CMOS cameras’ areas and sensitivities needed to assure a high success rate in acquiring suitable guide stars. Ways to provide auxiliary functions, including the measurement of defocus and misalignment of the telescope optics, are also discussed.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) will transform the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope into an 11.25-m aperture telescope, dedicated to highly multiplexed, visible to near-IR spectroscopic studies with multiple spectral resolution modes. A metric of MSE’s success is survey speed, i.e. how many scientifically useful spectra MSE will obtain in support of its surveys, which requires hardware and software to be designed and perform efficiently. In this paper, we describe the front-end software, which includes proposal review, a scheduler, an exposure time calculator, and a breaker to prepare and define the survey observations, and the back-end software, which includes data reduction and science pipelines, science archive, and science platform to deliver the data back to the science community. The interfaces, the flow of data, and the overarching object model will be explained. We also discuss the tools required to support the Design Reference Survey that describes and simulates the science operations of MSE.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) project will transform the CFHT 3.6m optical telescope to an 11.25 m multi- object spectroscopic facility with an ability to simultaneously detect thousands of objects with three spectral resolution modes, low resolution of R ~ 3,000, moderate resolution of R ~ 5,000, and high resolution of R 20,000 ~ 40,000, respectively. The multi-object high resolution (HR) spectrographs can derive simultaneously around one thousand high- resolution spectra of Blue, Green, and Red channels, respectively. Based on the discussion of the science cases in 2019, the design team suggested that the optimal design of HR spectrograph should balance between the new scientific requirements and technical feasibility. Here, the HR design team shows the trade-off study's progress and introduces a new preliminary design.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is a 10m-class, wide-field (1.5 sq. degree) and high-multiplex (< 3000 fibers) spectroscopic facility that will replace the 3.6m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. With backend spectrographs operating at low (R ~ 3000), moderate (R ~ 6000) and high (R ~ 20/40 k) spectral resolution across the 0.36 – 1.8 µm range, MSE will be poised to address a variety of science questions among which the nature of dark matter, the origin of the elements in the periodic table, the mass of the neutrino, whilst enabling a new era of rapid-response and time-domain astronomy. This paper is a status report of the MSE Low Moderate Resolution spectrograph design, from the Conceptual Design Review (CoDR) towards the Preliminary Design Phase (PDP).
Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is an international project supported by a culturally and geographically diverse design team that is centrally managed by the Project Office. Given the finite PO resources, it is imperative to provide a comprehensive plan to set the design team’s performance standard. MSE has created an integrated plan with configuration management and review process over MSE’s development, from conceptual design to science operations. The plan is a document-based system driven by mandatory reviews through the MSE development phases. This paper defines the objectives and expected outcomes of each mandatory review, and lists the titles, contents, developmental maturity and Configuration Management (CM) status of every document in required review data package. This paper also describes the Change Control protocol, within the CM framework, managed by formal Change Control Boards using a collection of configurable documents provided by the design team and the PO.
Systems engineering as a discipline is relatively new in the ground-based astronomy community and is becoming more common as projects become larger, more complex and more geographically diverse. Space and defense industry projects have been using systems engineering for much longer, however those projects don’t necessarily map well onto groundbased astronomy projects, for various reasons. Fortunately, many of the processes and tools have been documented by INCOSE, NASA, SEBoK and other organizations, however there can be incomplete or conflicting definitions within the process and implementation is not always clear. For ground-based systems engineers, adopting these existing processes can be confusing. One area of particular uncertainty involves how, when and where to document operations concepts in a way that captures astronomers’ needs, translates them into concise and complete requirements without over-constraining the design teams or over-burdening the project with complex requirements and document management procedures. We present the criteria and outcome of the solution(s) chosen from the perspective of two different projects: a new observatory that is planning its operations (Maunakea Spectrocopic Explorer, MSE) and a new instrument at a longestablished observatory (Gemini - GIRMOS). Quite possibly, this will not answer the question in the title and may raise more questions. We welcome that discussion.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is a project to upgrade the 3.6-meter telescope and instrumentation of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) into a 11.25-meter telescope equipped with fiber-fed spectrographs dedicated to optical and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic surveys of millions of faint stars and galaxies. The current baseline for MSE is that of a prime focus, 10-meter effective aperture telescope feeding a bank of low and moderate spectral resolution spectrographs (LR, R~3000 and MR, R~6000) located on plat- forms, as well as high spectral resolution spectrographs (HR, R~20000-40000) located in the more stable pier of the telescope. The 1.5 square degree field of view of MSE will be populated with more than 3200 fibers of 100 diameter allocated to the LMR spectrographs, and more than 1000 fibers of 0.800 for the HR spectrographs. MSE completed its Conceptual Design Phase early in 2018 and is about to enter its Preliminary Design Phase.
Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is a dedicated multi-object spectroscopic facility that is a major upgrade to the Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope (CFHT) on Maunakea, Hawaii, with a larger aperture and an expanded international partnership. MSE has completed its Conceptual Design Phase (CoDP) and is preparing for the upcoming Preliminary Design Phase.
The Canada France Hawaii Telescope Corporation (CFHT) plans to repurpose its observatory on the summit of Maunakea and operate a new wide field spectroscopic survey telescope, the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE). MSE will upgrade the observatory with a larger 11.25m aperture telescope and equip it with dedicated instrumentation to capitalize on the site, which has some of the best seeing in the northern hemisphere, and offer its user’s community the ability to do transformative science. The knowledge and experience of the current CFHT staff will contribute greatly to the engineering of this new facility.
MSE will reuse the same building and telescope pier as CFHT. However, it will be necessary to upgrade the support pier to accommodate a bigger telescope and replace the current dome since a wider slit opening of 12.5 meters in diameter is needed. Once the project is completed the new facility will be almost indistinguishable on the outside from the current CFHT observatory. MSE will build upon CFHT’s pioneering work in remote operations, with no staff at the observatory during the night, and use modern technologies to reduce daytime maintenance work.
This paper describes the design approach for redeveloping the CFHT facility for MSE including the infrastructure and equipment considerations required to support and facilitate nighttime observations. The building will be designed so existing equipment and infrastructure can be reused wherever possible while meeting new requirement demands. Past experience and lessons learned will be used to create a modern, optimized, and logical layout of the facility. The purpose of this paper is to provide information to readers involved in the MSE project or organizations involved with the redevelopment of an existing observatory facility for a new mission.
MSE is an 11.25m telescope with a 1.5 sq.deg. field of view. It can simultaneously obtain 3249 spectra at R = 3000 from 360−1800nm, and 1083 spectra at R = 40000 in the optical. The large field of view, large number of targets, as well as the use of more than 4000 optical fibres to transport the light from the focal plane to the spectrographs, means that precise and accurate science calibration is difficult but essential to obtaining the science goals. As a large aperture telescope focusing on the faint Universe, precision sky subtraction and spectrophotometry are especially important. Here, we discuss the science calibration requirements, and the adopted calibration strategy, including operational features and hardware, that will enable the successful scientific exploitation of the vast MSE dataset.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) will each year obtain millions of spectra in the optical to near- infrared, at low (R(see abstract for symbol) 3000) to high (R(see abstract for symbol) 40000) spectral resolution by observing <3000 spectra per pointing via a highly multiplexed fiber-fed system. Key science programs for MSE include black hole reverberation mapping, stellar population analysis of faint galaxies at high redshift, and sub-km/s velocity accuracy for stellar astrophysics.
The architecture of MSE is an assembly of subsystems designed to meet the science requirements and describes what MSE will look like. In this paper we focus on the operations concept of MSE, which describes how to operate a fiber fed, highly multiplexed, dedicated observatory given its architecture and the science requirements.
The operations concept details the phases of operations, from selecting proposals within the science community to distributing back millions of spectra to this community. For each phase, the operations concept describes the tools required to support the science community in their analyses and the operations staff in their work. It also highlights the specific needs related to the complexity of MSE with millions of targets to observe, thousands of fibers to position, and different spectral resolution to use. Finally, the operations concept shows how the science requirements on calibration and observing efficiency can be met.
Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer will be a 10-m class highly multiplexed survey telescope, including a segmented primary mirror and robotic fiber positioners at the prime focus. MSE will replace the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The multiplexing includes an array of over four thousand fibers feeding banks of spectrographs several tens of meters away.
We present an overview of the requirements flow-down for MSE, from Science Requirements Document to Observatory Requirements Document. We have developed the system performance budgets, along with updating the budget architecture of our evolving project. We have also identified the links between subsystems and system budgets (and subsequently science requirements) and included system budget that are unique to MSE as a fiber-fed facility.
All of this has led to a set of Observatory Requirements that is fully consistent with the Science Requirements.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) will each year obtain millions of spectra in the optical to near infrared, at low (R ≃3, 000) to high (R ≃ 40, 000) spectral resolution by observing <4,000 spectra per pointing via a highly multiplexed fiber-fed system. Key science programs for MSE include black hole reverberation mapping, stellar population analysis of faint galaxies at high redshift, and sub-km/s velocity accuracy for stellar astrophysics.
One key metric of the success of MSE will be its survey speed, i.e. how many spectra of good signal-to-noise ratio will MSE be able to obtain every night and every year. The survey speed is directly linked to the allocation efficiency - how many fibers in the focal surface can be allocated to targets - and to the injection efficiency what fraction of light from a target can enter the fiber at the focal surface.
In this paper we focus on the injection efficiency and how to optimize it to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of targets observed in sky dominated conditions. The injection efficiency depends on the size of the fiber and requires highly precise, repeatable and stable positioning of the fiber in the focal surface. We present the allocation budget used for Conceptual Design Review and the modeling that allows to estimate the injection efficiency, which is just one part necessary to meet the science requirements on sensitivities.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) will obtain millions of spectra each year in the optical to near-infrared, at low (R ≃ 3; 000) to high (R ≃ 40; 000) spectral resolution by observing <4,000 spectra per pointing via a highly multiplexed fiber-fed system. Key science programs for MSE include black hole reverberation mapping, stellar population analysis of faint galaxies at high redshift, and sub-km/s velocity accuracy for stellar astrophysics.
One key metric of the success of MSE will be its survey speed, i.e. how many spectra of good signal-to-noise ratio will MSE be able to obtain every night and every year. This is defined at the higher level by the observing efficiency of the observatory and should be at least 80%, as indicated in the Science Requirements.
In this paper we present the observing efficiency budget developed for MSE based on historical data at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and other Maunakea Observatories. We describe the typical sequence of events at night to help us compute the observing efficiency and how we envision to optimize it to meet the science requirements
MSE is an 11.25m telescope with a 1.5 sq.deg. field of view. It can simultaneously obtain 3249 spectra at R = 3000 from 360− 1800nm, and 1083 spectra at R = 40000 in the optical. Absolutely critical to the scientific success of MSE is to efficiently access the faint Universe. Here, we describe the adopted systems engineering methodology to ensure MSE meets the challenging sensitivity requirements, and how these requirements are partitioned across three budgets, relating to the throughput, noise and fiber injection efficiency. We then describe how the sensitivity of MSE as a system was estimated at the end of Conceptual Design Phase, and how this information was used to revisit the system design in order to meet the sensitivity requirements while maintaining the overall architectural concept of the Observatory. Finally, we present the anticipated sensitivity performance of MSE and describe the key science that these capabilities will enable.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is replacement of the existing 3.6-m Canada France Hawaii Telescope into a dedicated wide field highly multiplexed fiber fed spectroscopic facility. MSE is capable of observing over four thousand science targets simultaneously in two resolution modes. The paper describes the unique instrument system capabilities and its components starting from the telescope prime focus and ending at the spectrograph suite. The instrument system components have completed their conceptual designs and they include a Sphinx positioner system, fiber transmission system, low/moderate resolution and high resolution spectrographs and a calibration system. These components will be procured separately and the Project is responsible for their integration and the overall system performance afterward. The paper describes from a system perspective the specific design and interface constraints imposed on the components given the extra interface and integration considerations.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) project has completed its Conceptual Design Phase. This paper is a status report of the MSE project regarding its technical and programmatic progress. The technical status includes its conceptual design and system performance, and highlights findings and recommendations from the System and various subsystems design reviews. The programmatic status includes the project organization and management plan for the Preliminary Design Phase. In addition, this paper provides the latest information related to the permitting process for Maunakea construction.
KEYWORDS: Spectroscopes, Systems engineering, Spectroscopy, Telescopes, Observatories, Systems modeling, Spectrographs, Databases, Signal to noise ratio, Image quality
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) project is an enterprise to upgrade the existing Canada-France- Hawaii observatory into a spectroscopic facility based on a 10 meter-class telescope. As such, the project relies on engineering requirements not limited only to its instruments (the low, medium and high resolution spectrographs) but for the whole observatory. The science requirements, the operations concept, the project management and the applicable regulations are the basis from which these requirements are initially derived, yet they do not form hierarchies as each may serve several purposes, that is, pertain to several budgets. Completeness and consistency are hence the main systems engineering challenges for such a large project as MSE. Special attention is devoted to ensuring the traceability of requirements via parametric models, derivation documents, simulations, and finally maintaining KAOS diagrams and a database under IBM Rational DOORS linking them together. This paper will present the architecture of the main budgets under development and the associated processes, expand to highlight those that are interrelated and how the system, as a whole, is then optimized by modelling and analysis of the pertinent system parameters.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) will obtain millions of optical to near-infrared spectra, at low (R~2,500) to high (R~40,000) spectral resolution, via a highly multiplexed (~3000) fiber-fed system. Key science programs for MSE (black hole reverberation mapping, stellar population analysis at high redshift, subkm/ s velocity accuracy for stellar astrophysics) will target faint Galactic and extra-galactic targets (typical visual magnitudes up to 24). MSE will thus need to achieve the highest throughput possible over the 360 to 1800 nm wavelength range. Here we discuss building an optimized throughput budget in terms of performance allocation and technical solutions to steer the concept design studies.
MSE is a wide field telescope (1.5 square degree field of view) with an aperture of 11.25m. It is dedicated to multi-object spectroscopy at several different spectral resolutions in the range R ~ 2500 - 40000 over a broad wavelength range (0:36 - 1:8μm). MSE enables transformational science in areas as diverse as exoplanetary host characterization; stellar monitoring campaigns; tomographic mapping of the interstellar and intergalactic media; the in-situ chemical tagging of the distant Galaxy; connecting galaxies to the large scale structure of the Universe; measuring the mass functions of cold dark matter sub-halos in galaxy and cluster-scale hosts; reverberation mapping of supermassive black holes in quasars. Here, we summarize the Observatory and describe the development of the top level science requirements and operational concepts. Specifically, we describe the definition of the Science Requirements to be the set of capabilities that allow certain high impact science programs to be conducted. We cross reference these science cases to the science requirements to illustrate the traceability of this approach. We further discuss the operations model for MSE and describe the development of the Operations Concept Document, one of the foundational documents for the project. We also discuss the next stage in the science based development of MSE, specifically the development of the initial Legacy Survey that will occupy a majority of time on the telescope over the first few years of operation.
The Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope Corporation (CFHT) plans to repurpose its observatory on the summit of Maunakea and operate a (60 segment) 11.25m aperture wide field spectroscopic survey telescope, the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE). The prime focus telescope will be equipped with dedicated instrumentation to take advantage of one of the best sites in the northern hemisphere and offer its users the ability to perform large surveys. Central themes of the development plan are reusing and upgrading wherever possible. MSE will reuse the CFHT site and build upon the existing observatory infrastructure, using the same building and telescope pier as CFHT, while minimizing environmental impact on the summit. MSE will require structural support upgrades to the building to meet the latest building seismic code requirements and accommodate a new larger telescope and upgraded enclosure. It will be necessary to replace the current dome since a larger slit opening is needed for a larger telescope. MSE will use a thermal management system to remove heat generated by loads from the building, flush excess heat from lower levels, and maintain the observing environment temperature. This paper describes the design approach for redeveloping the CFHT facility for MSE. Once the project is completed the new facility will be almost indistinguishable on the outside from the current CFHT observatory. Past experience and lessons learned from CFHT staff and the astronomical community will be used to create a modern, optimized, and transformative scientific data collecting machine.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer is designed to be the largest non-ELT optical/NIR astronomical telescope, and will be a fully dedicated facility for multi-object spectroscopy over a broad range of spectral resolutions. The MSE design has progressed from feasibility concept into its current baseline design where the system configuration of main systems such as telescope, enclosure, summit facilities and instrument are fully defined. This paper will describe the engineering development of the main systems, and discuss the trade studies to determine the optimal telescope and multiplexing designs and how their findings are incorporated in the current baseline design.
The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) will each year obtain millions of spectra in the optical to nearinfrared, at low (R ≃ 2; 500) to high (R ≃ 40; 000) spectral resolution by observing >3000 spectra per pointing via a highly multiplexed fiber-fed system. Key science programs for MSE include black hole reverberation mapping, stellar population analysis of faint galaxies at high redshift, and sub-km/s velocity accuracy for stellar astrophysics. This requires highly precise, repeatable and stable spectral calibration over long timescales. To meet these demanding science goals and to allow MSE to deliver data of very high quality to the broad community of astronomers involved in the project, a comprehensive and efficient calibration strategy is being developed. In this paper, we present the different challenges we face to properly calibrate the MSE spectra and the solutions we are considering to address these challenges.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.