2005/08/25 by Daniel Fabricant, Robert Fata, John Roll +6 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/497385
published as Publ.Astron.Soc.Pac.117:1411-1434,2005 · 68 pages, 28 figures, to appear in December 2005 PASP
arxiv created 2005/08/25 · arxiv updated 2011/06/13
The Hectospec is a 300 optical fiber fed spectrograph commissioned at the MMT in the spring of 2004. A pair of high-speed six-axis robots move the 300 fiber buttons between observing configurations within ~300 s and to an accuracy ~25 microns. The optical fibers run for 26 m between the MMT's focal surface and the bench spectrograph operating at R~1000-2000. Another high dispersion bench spectrograph offering R~5,000, Hectochelle, is also available. The system throughput, including all losses in the telescope optics, fibers, and spectrograph peaks at ~10% at the grating blaze in 1" FWHM seeing. Correcting for aperture losses at the 1.5" diameter fiber entrance aperture, the system throughput peaks at ∼17%. Hectospec has proven to be a workhorse instrument at the MMT. Hectospec and Hectochelle together were scheduled for 1/3 of the available nights since its commissioning. Hectospec has returned \~60,000 reduced spectra for 16 scientific programs during its first year of operation.