1996/11/01 by L. Weitzel, A. Krabbe, H. Kroker +4 · 3 citations
Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Optical Coatings and Gratings #Spectroscopy and Laser Applications #Superconducting and THz Device Technology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/aas:1996266
openalex publication_date 1996/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
The new MPE near infrared imaging spectrometer 3D represents a new generation of astronomical instrumentation. It is based on a 2562 NICMOS-3 Rockwell array and can simultaneously obtain 256 H- or K-band spectra at R= 1100 or 2100 from a square 16×16 pixel field on the sky. Typical pixel scales are 0.3″/pixel or 0.5″/pixel. 3D is a combination of a novel image slicer and a liquid nitrogen cooled long slit spectrometer. It includes high definition on-axis lens optics, a high efficiency directly ruled KRS-5 grism as well as a cold closed-loop piezo-driven tilt mirror allowing full spectral sampling. The instrument efficiency including detector is 15%. Combining the advantages of imaging and spectroscopy increases the observing efficiency on key astronomical objects (e.g. galactic nuclei) by such a large factor over existing grating or Fabry-Perot spectrometers that subarcsecond near-IR spectroscopy of faint Seyferts, starbursts, quasars, or distant galaxy clusters becomes feasible for the first time with 4m-class telescopes. As a portable instrument 3D has already been successfully deployed on several 2 and 4m-class telescopes.