Early light TMT instrumentation

David Crampton; Luc Simard; David Silva

doi:10.1117/12.787605

9 July 2008 Early light TMT instrumentation

David Crampton, Luc Simard, David Silva

Proceedings Volume 7014, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy II; 70141D (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.787605
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2008, Marseille, France

Abstract

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project will provide diffraction limited and seeing limited capabilities that will be highly synergistic with JWST and other planned astronomy missions. TMT will thus be poised to tackle most of the questions confronting scientists today and for the next several decades. The early light instrumentation will provide NIR imaging and integral field spectroscopy designed to sample even the tiny 7mas images provided at 1.2 microns by a multi-conjugate laser guide star AO system, near-infrared multi-slit spectroscopy over a 2 arcmin field (fed by the same AO system, tuned for wide field performance), and wide field multi-object spectroscopy in the 0.3 - 1 micron wavelength region. TMT is being designed, as a system, to take advantage of the observational opportunities that a diffraction limited 30m telescope will afford. Results of detailed end-to-end modeling demonstrate excellent performance in both seeing-limited and diffraction-limited modes. TMT is also being designed to operate in a very efficient manner. Details of how this will be accomplished, descriptions of the planned instrumentation with focus on the early light instruments, new technologies that will be implemented, and a summary of the anticipated observing programs and how these will complement observations from other facilities are described.

Citation Download Citation

David Crampton, Luc Simard, and David Silva "Early light TMT instrumentation", Proc. SPIE 7014, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy II, 70141D (9 July 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.787605

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