Instrument Overview

A summary of the instrument's capabilities is presented below:

• TripleSpec is installed at the SOAR telescope on the IR Nasmyth platform
• The instrument is a single, fixed collimator-disperser-camera unit with no moving parts
• The science detector is a 2048×2048 Hawaii-2RG HgCdTe array with the following properties:
  • 18-micron square pixels with a sampling of 0.33763”/pixel
  • gain of 1.1e-/ADU
  • linear to 5% up to 90000e-
  • Readnoise (e-/pixel) vs Fowler sampling are: 11.3 (Fowler=1), 6.6 (Fowler=4), 5.2 (Fowler=8), 4.0 (Fowler=16), 3.0 (Fowler=32)
  • Minimum exposure time is given by: t_min (sec) = N_Fowler * 1.2
  • readout time is given by: t_readout (sec) = N_Fowler * 1.2
  • Recommended maximum exposure time (to avoid saturation of bright telluric OH lines): t_max = 220 sec
• Fixed-format slit assembly is 1.0" wide and 26.3" long with offset 1.0" square-pitch outriggers
• Spectral resolution of R~3500 across the five science orders
• Imaging detector serves as a J-band slit viewer and guider with the following properties
  • 4' 4' field-of-view
  • ~0.255"/pixel plate scale
  • 0.75 second minimum exposure time
  • ~1 second readout time