Thursday, April 10, 2014

With the installation of MODS2, all facility instruments are now on the telescope!


At the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory, the instruments for general use by the the members of the LBT community, so-called "facility instruments", come in pairs.

While the two LBCs (Large Binocular Cameras)  have been together for years, LUCI2 met LUCI1 on the telescope  in October of last year. LUCI2 is still in commissioning mode (not offered for science yet)

On April 9, MODS2, the second in the pair of Multi-Object Double-beam Spectrographs designed and built by OSU, joined its twin MODS1. 

MODS2, which  arrived on Mt Graham in October of last year, can be seen on the right on its way up to the telescope floor. Over the coming months, MODS2 will  undergo  a series of tests, first during day time and eventually on sky for its commissioning.  


The installation on the telescope went very smoothly. The picture below shows MODS1 on the left and MODS2 on the right of the telescope, each at the Direct Gregorian focus of its own 8.4-m mirror. 



 (pictures by R.Pogge - OSU)

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