Technical improvements and performances of SpIOMM: an imaging Fourier transform spectrometer for astronomy

Abstract

We present the most recent technical improvements on SpIOMM, an Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (IFTS) attached to the 1.6 telescope of the Mont Mégantic Observatory. The recent development of SpIOMM demonstrates that the concept of IFTS for ground telescopes is a promising astronomical 3D spectroscopy technique for multi-object spectroscopy and multi-band imaging. SpIOMM has been developed through a collaboration between Université Laval and the industry (ABB Bomem). It is designed for optical observations from the near UV (350 nm) to the near IR (850 nm) with variable spectral resolution. The circular FOV of the instrument covers 12 arcmin in diameter. We have recently improved the servo system algorithm which now controls the mirror displacement and alignment at a rate of ~7000Hz. Hardware improvements to the servo and the metrology system will be described along with their impacts on performance in the laboratory and in observing conditions. The instrument has successfully been operated at the 1.6 meter telescope this year using the revised control systems and acquired several datacubes. We will discuss some issues regarding the sensitivity to environmental conditions implied by the use of such an instrument. An overview of the datacube reduction procedure will show some solutions proposed for observational problems encountered that affect the quality of the data such as sky transmission variations, wind, changing gravity vector and temperature.