Astronomical Instrumentationat Texas A&M

Jennifer MarshallDarren DePoy

TAMU Instrumentation

• The Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University has built a new astronomical instrumentation lab – Three years old– Led by Darren DePoy

• Mission: to design and build astronomical instrumentation to support Dark Energy and Cosmology observations

• Partner in DES, LSST, HETDEX/HET, GMT

DECam for DES

• Dark Energy Survey– Led by Fermilab– DECam: Large new camera

for CTIO 4m telescope• DePoy is Project Scientist

for DECam• TAMU is involved in

calibration efforts for DECam– DECal– aTmCam

Projection optics

Screen

Fiber bundle Spectro meter

Light source

Mono chromator

Photodiode

DECal for DES

Calibration system for DECam:

• Flat field screen• Daily flat field system

– LED flat field lamps• Spectrophotometric

calibration system– Long fiber bundle– Monochromator (with

spectrometer monitor)– Monitor photodiodes

aTmCam for DES• aTmCam is an atmospheric

monitoring camera• Goal: produce <1%

photometry by monitoring sky during DES observations

300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

1.1

1.2

1.3atmosphere throughput

wavelength in nm

norm

aliz

ed tr

ansm

ittan

ce

pressure ozone water

aerosol

‘cannon’ mask with wedge prism and narrowband filters

VIRUS for HETDEX

VIRUS is a new instrument for HET to support HETDEX survey– 150+ channel fiber-fed

spectrograph – >33,000 1.5” fibers– 350-550 nm coverage

at R~700

GMACS for GMT

• Texas A&M is a founding partner in the Giant Magellan Telescope

• Recently completed a one-year design study of GMACS– Wide field multi-object

optical spectrograph

MooSci for GMT

• We have built a lunar scintillometer called MooSci for GMT site testing

• Used to test site before and after top of mountain is removed

Antarctic instrumentation

• We are interested in collaborating in projects for Antarctica/Dome A– We have begun discussions with Teledyne

regarding purchasing detectors for KDUST– We could also help with camera design/testing