Two NEW instruments under development at NEW laboratory
- Progress toward observations on the TAO 6.5m telescope -

SWIMS

SWIMS is an wide-field (~9 arcmin in diameter) imager and mutli-object spectrograph covering two wavelength ranges in the near-infrared (0.9-1.4 and 1.4-2.5 μm) simultaneously. As shown in Figure 2, the instrument consists of the cryostat containing optics and detector units, and multi-object spectroscopy unit (Figure 1). There are challenging things in the development: very large lenses (Figure 3) and the Slitmask Exchanger Unit used for multi-object spectroscopy. A large crane is required for installation and assembly of the components.

・ Figure 1 (Top left): multi-object spectroscopy unit mounted on the SWIMS cryostat, showing Slitmask Exchanger Unit (near side) and a carousel system storing slitmasks (far side). ・ Figure 2 (Top right): Fully assembled SWIMS. You can imagine its size as compared to the workers ・ Figure 3 (Bottom): Several lenses are made from ZnSe (Zinc Selenide).

Animation of SWIMS assembly (hover over the image to start the animation)

MIMIZUKU

MIMIZUKU is an unique instrument which takes advantage of the very high altitude (18,500 ft) and dry climate (low water vapor over the telescope site) to observe in 2-38 μm including so-called 30-μm band in which it is considered not to be accessible from the ground (Figure 4). The cryostat can move up and down (Figure 5) in order to observe two distant astronomical regions separated by 25 arcmin at maximum which leads us to high-precision mid-infrared observational astronomy. In the laboratory building, a special scaffold has been build for various performance testings of the instrument (Figure 6).

・ Figure 4 (Top left): The cryostat of MIMIZUKU ・ Figure 5 (Top right): Two power cylinders placed along the sides of the cryostat move the cryostat. ・ Figure 6 (Bottom): The scaffold is arranged in a U-shaped configuration during various experiments.