HERCULES: a high-resolution spectrograph for small- to medium-sized telescopes

Stuart I. Barnes; John B. Hearnshaw; Graeme Kershaw; Nigel Frost; R. Ritchie; G. Graham; Garry Nankivell

doi:10.1117/12.460898

7 March 2003 HERCULES: a high-resolution spectrograph for small to medium-sized telescopes

Stuart I. Barnes, John B. Hearnshaw, Graeme Kershaw, Nigel Frost, R. Ritchie, G. Graham, Garry Nankivell

Proceedings Volume 4841, Instrument Design and Performance for Optical/Infrared Ground-based Telescopes; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.460898
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawai'i, United States

Abstract

The High Efficiency and Resolution Canterbury University Large Echelle Spectrograph (HERCULES) is a fibre-fed echelle spectrograph that has been in operation at the Mount John University Observatory for just over one year. HERCULES is used in conjunction with the 1-m McLellan telescope, and can capture the spectrum from 380 nm to 880 nm on a single 50-mm square CCD. Resolving powers of up to 70000 are possible when using 50-μm fibres, and a resolving power of 35000 is possible with a 100-μm fibre. Wavelength calibration is done using sequential exposures of a thorium-argon emission lamp. The spectrograph is designed to achieve high efficiency when the seeing is well matched to the image scale on the fibre input (up to 20% in 1 arcsec seeing), and high stability is achieved by having the spectrograph installed inside a vacuum tank in a thermally isolated environment. Initial indications are that radial velocities with a precision of ≤ 10 ms^-1 are routinely possible in the short-term.

Citation Download Citation

Stuart I. Barnes, John B. Hearnshaw, Graeme Kershaw, Nigel Frost, R. Ritchie, G. Graham, and Garry Nankivell "HERCULES: a high-resolution spectrograph for small to medium-sized telescopes", Proc. SPIE 4841, Instrument Design and Performance for Optical/Infrared Ground-based Telescopes, (7 March 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.460898

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