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This paper presents an overview of the SDSS-V Local Volume Mapper (LVM) telescope system. LVM is one of three surveys that form the fifth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and it employs a coordinated network of four, 16-cm telescopes feeding three fiber spectrographs at the Las Campanas Observatory. The goal is to spectrally map more than 4000 square degrees of the Galactic plane with 37” spatial resolution and R~4000 spectral resolution over the wavelength range 360-980nm. This corresponds to roughly 50 million individual spectra, which will reveal how distinct gaseous environments within our Galaxy interact with the stellar population, producing the large-scale interstellar medium that we observe.
Accurately mapping and calibrating a substantial portion of the sky in this way requires a unique type of telescope. Each of the four units consists of a two-mirror siderostat in alt-alt configuration feeding an optical breadboard. This produces a fixed, stable focal plane for the fiber IFU and bundle. One telescope hosts the science IFU, while two others observe adjacent dark fields to calibrate geocoronal emission. The fourth telescope makes rapid observations of bright stars to compensate telluric absorption. The entrance slits of the spectrographs intersperse the fibers from all three types of telescope, producing truly simultaneous science and calibration exposures.
After roughly four years of design, development, construction, testing, and commissioning, the LVM telescopes entered regular survey operations in late 2023. We summarize the entire LVM telescope project, from input scientific requirements to the actual performance achieved on-sky.
Among its main scientific goals are the detection of atmospheres of exoplanets and the determination of fundamental physical constants. For this, high radial velocity precision and accuracy are required. Even though the ANDES-spectrograph is designed for maximum intrinsic stability, a calibration and thus a calibration unit is mandatory. To allow for maximum flexibility and modularity the calibration unit is physically split into three calibration units.
We show the design of the calibration units and their individual components, where possible. This includes the electronics, the mechanics, the software supporting and controlling the light guiding and calibration sources.
Initially proposed as an instrument covering also the K-band, the current design foresees a camera working from Y to H bands, exploiting in this way the synergy with other LBT instruments such as LBTI, which is actually covering wavelengths greater than L' band, and it will be soon upgraded to work also in K band. SHARK-NIR has been undergoing the conceptual design review at the end of 2015 and it has been approved to proceed to the final design phase, receiving the green light for successive construction and installation at LBT.
The current design is significantly more flexible than the previous one, having an additional intermediate pupil plane that will allow the usage of coronagraphic techniques very efficient in term of contrast and vicinity to the star, increasing the instrument coronagraphic performance. The latter is necessary to properly exploit the search of giant exo-planets, which is the main science case and the driver for the technical choices of SHARK-NIR. We also emphasize that the LBT AO SOUL upgrade will further improve the AO performance, making possible to extend the exo-planet search to target fainter than normally achieved by other 8-m class telescopes, and opening in this way to other very interesting scientific scenarios, such as the characterization of AGN and Quasars (normally too faint to be observed) and increasing considerably the sample of disks and jets to be studied.
Finally, we emphasize that SHARK-NIR will offer XAO direct imaging capability on a FoV of about 15"x15", and a simple coronagraphic spectroscopic mode offering spectral resolution ranging from few hundreds to few thousands. This article presents the current instrument design, together with the milestones for its installation at LBT.
In this paper, we report on the first on-sky results and analyze the performances based on the data collected so far. We also discuss adaptive optics procedures and the joint operations with Luci for science observations.
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