SWIMS Science Workshop was held

The second science workshop for the near-infrared multi-object spectrograph SWIMS currently under development for the TAO 6.5 m telescope was held since the first one in 2009. In the meantime, as the instrument performance is being evaluated, a variety of specific observation proposals were presented. In the future, SWIMS will go through the comprehensive performance evaluation test at Mitaka and will be installed onto the Subaru Telescope of the NAOJ Hawaii Observatory to conduct the actual performance evaluation tests and early science observations in 2015. It will be then transported to Chile to see its first light on the TAO 6.5 m telescope in FY2017.

Participants of the workshop	Discussions among participants

In this workshop, with a view to actual observation, there were many specific observation proposals on such as cosmology, distant / nearby galaxies, AGNs, supernovae and galactic objects, including six invited talks. Those are so practical that can fully exploit the performance of the site and the instrument; the atmosphere at the high-altitude site is transparent in almost all the near-infrared wavelengths due to high altitude, and the instrument is capable of wide-field imaging, multi-object spectroscopy, and integral-field spectroscopy. We had high expectations for SWIMS from the presentations. In total, 40 people participated including those who via telecon.

Between the talks, we have demonstrated the operation of the multi-object spectroscopy unit, which is currently under performance evaluation tests at the laboratory building. Participants showed strong interest in the actual motion of the mask exchange.

Participants observing the MOSU demonstration

For further information on SWIMS, please refer to the following.

• The TAO Project/6.5m telescope/instruments