Have You Met MAROON-X?

MAROON-X is the newest Visiting Instrument at Gemini North, and will be available to users for the first time in the coming 2020B semester. This instrument was constructed at the University of Chicago, and is expected to have the capability to detect Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of mid- to late-M dwarfs using the radial velocity method. The core component of MAROON-X is a modified version of the KiwiSpec R4-100 spectrograph produced by KiwiStar Optics of New Zealand. The instrument was designed to deliver a resolving power of R~80,000 for a 100um wide pseudo-slit at f/10 with 3.5 pixel sampling across a wavelength range of 500-900nm spread over two camera arms.

While most Gemini instruments are attached directly to the Instrument Support Structure on the telescope, MAROON-X sits four levels below the telescope, in the Pier Lab. We use a specialized device called the Front End Unit to interface to the telescope and to hold the optical fibers that send the light down to the spectrograph through a hole in the floor. The main spectrograph optics, including echelle grating, primary and secondary collimators, input relay and dichroic beamsplitter are mounted on a stainless steel bench and held inside a vacuum chamber at < 10-5 mbar. The cross-disperser and camera optics, along with the detectors, are mounted outside of the vacuum chamber on a large optical table. The complete spectrograph is housed in an environmental enclosure within the Pier Lab that is kept at 10C within 10-20mK, shown here.