Daily Image
26-10-2009
SPHERE-ZIMPOL aligned by team from ESO-Paranal and NOVA-ASTRON
| Submitter: | Johan Pragt |
| Description: | An instrument engineer from ESO-Paranal came to Dwingeloo for 2 weeks, to work with the NOVA-ASTRON team on the assembly of the units and the alignment of the entire instrument. The goal of his visit was to learn the details of the instrument and to get to know the team behind it, for better support during commissioning and installation. The pictures show the aligning of the Polarizing Beam Splitter in the cleanroom. This Beam Splitter is, together with a switching HWP and the detector, the hart of the instrument. The ‘Planet Finder’ Instrument for the VLT is called SPHERE, and is in the socalled MAIT phase. The assembly of the focal plane instrument ZIMPOL started in November. SPHERE-ZIMPOL, one of the three focal instruments of SPHERE, and is developed by a consortium of University of Amsterdam, University Utrecht, ETH Zürich and NOVA-ASTRON. SPHERE-ZIMPOL is a high-precision imaging polarimeter working in the visual range. The ZIMPOL instrument principle is based on differential comparison of the two polarisation images by fast modulation with a FLC (Ferro-electric Liquid Crystal), a technique that is also used in solar telescope instruments. Testing at ASTRON during Q4 2009 to Q2 2010. Integration into the SPHERE instrument in Grenoble in Q3 2010. SPHERE first light on VLT in Q1 2011. SPHERE is a consortium with partners in FR, GE, CH, IT and NL. http://www.eso.org/projects/aot/vltpf/ |
| Copyright: | NOVA-ASTRON |
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