Integral field spectroscopy will be provided by the existing SPIRAL Integal Field Unit, with modifications to the slit end to allow it to feed the new AAOmega spectrograph, thus providing a field of view of 22 x 11 arcsec with 0.7 arcsec/lenslet/fibre (512 spatial elements). The SPIRAL IFU will normally be mounted at the auxiliary Cassegrain focus; spectropolarimetry may be available with the IFU mounted at the normal Cassegrain focus (this has not been determined yet). Spectral resolutions (lambda/Delta(lambda)) between 2000-13000 will be available in IFU mode.
AAOmega
will have a new, innovative bench mounted spectrograph incorporating
the latest technology. The spectrograph
will be a dual-beam system with separate blue
and red arms.
The optics will be optimized for each arm and will
use sol-gel antireflection coatings to obtain high efficiency. Instead
of traditional reflection gratings AAOmega
will use state of the art Volume
Phase Holographic (VPH) gratings which can be up to 50% more
efficient. Blue and red optimized 2k x 4k EEV CCDs
will be used to provide increased
efficiency while the large detector area and new AAO-2 controllers will permit
nod & shuffle
observing and reduce fibre cross talk. The spectrograph will be mounted in the
mechanically and temperature stable Coude room.