Submitted by jelias on Tue, 2016-06-14 15:54

Warning -

If you find your way to this page, you are probably using a saved link or one we missed on the web site. If you are interested in the Fabry-Perot mode of SAM, please see this page instead.

SOAR is opening a call for proposals for early-science with SAM-FP in 2016B, for 4 nights (September 29 – October 2, 2016). SAM-FP is a restricted-use instrument; it is a new mode of operation of SAM for spectroscopy using a Fabry-Perot (FP) and SAMI.  Ongoing tests of the instrument are underway, performed by the instrument team (C. Mendes de Oliveira, P. Amram, B. Quint).  There are two Fabry-Perot devices available for the present early-science call, one high order p=609 Fabry Perot, with Finesse ~ 18.5 and a free spectral range (FSR) of 10.8 Angstroms, enabling data cubes with spectral resolution R~11200 at Halpha and a low order p=134 device, with Finesse ~ 30.5, Free spectral range FSR=49 Angstroms yielding R=4100 at Halpha, both over a field of view 3 x 3 arcmin. We have had two successful runs with the high order, high resolution Fabry Perot so far and some of the data taken are shown in the next section and in Mendes de Oliveira et al. 2016, as examples of what can be done with this instrument. The low-resolution Fabry Perot has also been successfully tested on sky but bad weather conditions did not allow us to make observations for science use. A high-resolution Fabry-Perot with GLAO can be a unique tool in the study of kinematics of emission-line objects such as star forming galaxies, gas flows, planetary nebula, HH objects, and giant HII regions, among others.  The low-resolution is mainly interesting for AGN work, galactic outflows, studies of T Tauri stars and mass loss events.

The call for proposals is contained in this linked document; the recently-submitted SAM F-P paper is available here.

Update 2016.08.10 

We just added new information about the new SAM-FP mode in our SOAR webpage. You can access it by the top menu "Astronomers", "Optical Instrument as SOAR", "SOAR Adaptive Module (SAM)" and then click on "SAM-FP" link on the right menu. Or you can simply click on this link. Please, let us know about any questions, suggestion, comments. We will try to answer all of them promptly and we will use these feedback to add more information in our pages. To get in touch, please, write to the R. A. Bruno C. Quint (bquint at ctio.noao.edu).