This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 9908 including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction, and Conference Committee listing.

The Paranal Instrumentation Programme is responsible for planning and delivering the instruments and the associated infrastructure needed to keep the VLT and La Silla Observatories at the forefront of ground-based astronomy. The VLT second generation instruments KMOS, MUSE and SPHERE have been delivered and are in operations, GRAVITY is under commissioning at the renewed VLTI facility. The Adapative Optics Facility is moving towards completion, as well as the high resolution spectrograph ESPRESSO and the VLTI second generation instrument MATISSE. The mid-IR imager and spectrograph VISIR has been upgraded, and a major upgrade of the CRIRES spectrograph is under way. Finally, two new Multi Object Spectrographs projects have started, one for the VLT (MOONS), one for the 4M VISTA telescope (4MOST), and two new instruments for La Silla, (SOXS and NIRPS) fully funded by the community, are being agreed. The Programme follows a roadmap that foresees one new instrument/project or one upgrade starting every year. Active management, cost to completion and risk policy are in place.

We present the instrumentation plan of the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) until 2019. It includes a suite of instruments covering a wide wavelength range (from 350 to 2000 nm), with imaging, multiplexed (MOS, IFUs, and Fabry-Perot) spectroscopy at a resolution up to R=30000, polarimetric capabilities, and adaptive optics correction. Up to six instruments will be simultaneously available, taking advantage of five, full-equipped and interchangeable focal configurations of GTC, which include one Main Cassegrain focus, two Nasmyth platforms, and two Folded-Cassegrain foci.

The W. M. Keck Observatory is committed to maintaining the scientific leadership of our observing community by matching our observers' skills and passions in their fields of astronomical science with a continuing dedication by the Observatory and its collaborators to the development of state of the art instrumentation and systems. Our science driven strategic plan guides these developments and informs our plans for the future. In this paper we describe the performance of recently completed new instruments, instrument upgrades, and infrastructure upgrade projects. We also describe the expected performance of projects currently in the development or construction phases. Projects recently completed include a new laser for the Keck II AO system, the upgrade of the spectrograph detector in the OSIRIS instrument, and the upgrade to the telescope control system on the Keck II telescope. Projects in development include an upgrade to the telescope control system on the Keck I telescope, the blue channel of the Keck Cosmic Web Imager, the red channel of the Keck Cosmic Web Imager, the Keck Planet Finder, a deployable tertiary mirror for the Keck I telescope, an upgrade to the imager of OSIRIS, a major upgrade to the NIRSPEC instrument, and a fiber feed from the Keck II AO system to NIRSPEC.

In the past few years, a new prime focus optical imager Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC), which has 1.5 deg field of view (FoV), is commissioned and started its science operation. Prime-Focus Spectrograph (PFS), which is an optical to near-infrared multiplexed spectrograph over 1.3 deg FoV is currently in the construction phase and will be a next facility instrument to promote the wide-field astronomy at Subaru together with HSC. As a new facility instrument program, ULTIMATE-Subaru, which will develop wide-field near-infrared instruments with the aid of ground-layer adaptive optics system, is being planned. In addition to the new facility instruments, upgrades of the existing facility instruments and developments of several visitor instruments are in progress. This paper gives an overview of current and future instrumentation at the Subaru telescope.

Under the new operational purview of the East Asian Observatory, the JCMT continues to produce premier wide-field submillimetre science. Now the Observatory looks to embark on an ambitious series of instrumentation upgrades and opportunities to keep the telescope at the bleeding edge of its performance capabilities, whilst harnessing the collaborative expertise of the participating EAO regions and its JCMT partners. New heterodyne instruments include a new receiver at 230 GHz, a super array (90 pixels) at 345 GHz and the upgrade possibilities for the continuum camera SCUBA-2. In addition, the opportunities for PI and visiting instruments, including TimePilot and Gismo-2 will be described.

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is being designed to optimize studies of the magnetic coupling between the lower layers of the solar atmosphere (the photosphere and chromosphere) in order to investigate the origins and evolution of the solar magnetic field and its role in driving solar activity. In order to achieve this, the thermal, dynamic and magnetic properties of the solar plasma must be probed over many scale heights and at intrinsic scales, requiring the use of multi wavelength spectroscopy and spectropolarimetry at high spatial, spectral and temporal resolution. In this paper we describe some of the over-arching science questions that EST will address and briefly outline the main features of the proposed telescope design and the associated instrumentation package.

We present a performance report for FLITECAM, a 1-5 μm imager and spectrograph, upon its acceptance and delivery to SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy). FLITECAM has two observing configurations: solo configuration and “FLIPO” configuration, which is the co-mounting of FLITECAM with the optical instrument HIPO (PI E. Dunham, Lowell Observatory). FLITECAM was commissioned in the FLIPO configuration in 2014 and flew in the solo configuration for the first time in Fall 2015, shortly after its official delivery to SOFIA. Here we quantify FLITECAM’s imaging and spectral performance in both configurations and discuss the science capabilities of each configuration, with examples from in-flight commissioning and early science data. The solo configuration (which comprises fewer warm optics) has better sensitivity at longer wavelengths. We also discuss the causes of excess background detected in the in-flight FLITECAM images at low elevations and describe the current plan to mitigate the largest contributor to this excess background.

The Immersion Grating Infrared Spectrometer (IGRINS) is a revolutionary instrument that exploits broad spectral coverage at high-resolution in the near-infrared. IGRINS employs a silicon immersion grating as the primary disperser, and volume-phase holographic gratings cross-disperse the H and K bands onto Teledyne Hawaii-2RG arrays. The use of an immersion grating facilitates a compact cryostat while providing simultaneous wavelength coverage from 1.45 - 2.5 μm. There are no cryogenic mechanisms in IGRINS and its high-throughput design maximizes sensitivity. IGRINS on the 2.7 meter Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory is nearly as sensitive as CRIRES at the 8 meter Very Large Telescope. However, IGRINS at R≈45,000 has more than 30 times the spectral grasp of CRIRES* in a single exposure. Here we summarize the performance of IGRINS from the first 300 nights of science since commissioning in summer 2014. IGRINS observers have targeted solar system objects like Pluto and Ceres, comets, nearby young stars, star forming regions like Taurus and Ophiuchus, the interstellar medium, photo dissociation regions, the Galactic Center, planetary nebulae, galaxy cores and super novae. The rich near-infrared spectra of these objects motivate unique science cases, and provide information on instrument performance. There are more than ten submitted IGRINS papers and dozens more in preparation. With IGRINS on a 2.7m telescope we realize signal-to-noise ratios greater than 100 for K=10.3 magnitude sources in one hour of exposure time. Although IGRINS is Cassegrain mounted, instrument flexure is sub-pixel thanks to the compact design. Detector characteristics and stability have been tested regularly, allowing us to adjust the instrument operation and improve science quality. A wide variety of science programs motivate new tools for analyzing high-resolution spectra including multiplexed spectral extraction, atmospheric model fitting, rotation and radial velocity, unique line identification, and circumstellar disk modeling. Here we discuss details of instrument performance, summarize early science results, and show the characteristics of IGRINS as a versatile near-infrared spectrograph and forerunner of future silicon immersion grating spectrographs like iSHELL² and GMTNIRS.³

We present an overview of the VISIR instrument after its upgrade and return to science operations. VISIR is the midinfrared imager and spectrograph at ESO’s VLT. The project team is comprised of ESO staff and members of the original VISIR consortium: CEA Saclay and ASTRON. The project plan was based on input from the ESO user community with the goal of enhancing the scientific performance and efficiency of VISIR by a combination of measures: installation of improved hardware, optimization of instrument operations and software support. The cornerstone of the upgrade is the 1k by 1k Si:As AQUARIUS detector array manufactured by Raytheon. In addition, a new prism spectroscopic mode covers the whole N-band in a single observation. Finally, new scientific capabilities for high resolution and high-contrast imaging are offered by sub-aperture mask and coronagraphic modes. In order to make optimal use of favourable atmospheric conditions, a water vapour monitor has been deployed on Paranal, allowing for real-time decisions and the introduction of a user-defined constraint on water vapour. During the commissioning in 2012, it was found that the on-sky sensitivity of the AQUARIUS detector was significantly below expectations. Extensive testing of the detector arrays in the laboratory and on-sky enabled us to diagnose the cause for the shortcoming of the detector as excess low frequency noise. It is inherent to the design chosen for this detector and cannot be remedied by changing the detector set-up. Since this is a form of correlated noise, its impact can be limited by modulating the scene recorded by the detector. After careful analysis, we have implemented fast (up to 4 Hz) chopping with field stabilization using the secondary mirror of the VLT. During commissioning, the upgraded VISIR has been confirmed to be more sensitive than the old instrument, and in particular for low-resolution spectroscopy in the N-band, a gain of a factor 6 is realized in observing efficiency. After overcoming several additional technical problems, VISIR is back in Science Operations since April 2015. In addition an upgrade of the IT infrastructure related to VISIR has been conducted in order to support burst-mode operations. Science Verification of the new modes was performed in Feb 2016. The upgraded VISIR is a powerful instrument providing close to background limited performance for diffraction-limited observations at an 8-m telescope. It offers synergies with facilities such as ALMA, JWST, VLTI and SOFIA, while a wealth of targets is available from survey works like WISE. In addition, it will bring confirmation of the technical readiness and scientific value of several aspects for future mid-IR instrumentation at Extremely Large Telescopes. We also present several lessons learned during the project.

The Multi-Object Spectrograph for Infrared Exploration (MOSFIRE) achieved first light on the W. M. Keck Observatory’s Keck I telescope on 4 April 2012 and quickly became the most popular Keck I instrument. One of the primary reasons for the instrument’s popularity is that it uses a configurable slitmask unit developed by the Centre Suisse d’Electronique et Microtechnique (CSEM SA) to isolate the light from up to 46 objects simultaneously. In collaboration with the instrument development team and CSEM engineers, the Keck observatory staff present how MOSFIRE is successfully used, and we identify what contributed to routine and trouble free nighttime operations.

The High Acuity Wide field K-band Imager (HAWK-I) instrument is a cryogenic wide field imager operating in the wavelength range 0.9 to 2.5 microns. It has been in operations since 2007 on the UT4 at the Very Large Telescope Observatory in seeing-limited mode. In 2017-2018, GRound Layer Adaptive optics Assisted by Lasers module (GRAAL) will be in operation and the system GRAAL+HAWK-I will be commissioned. It will allow: deeper exposures for nearly point-source objects, or shorter exposure times for reaching the same magnitude, and/or deeper detection limiting magnitude. With GRAAL, HAWK-I will operate more than 80% of the time with an equivalent K-band seeing of 0.55" (instead of 0.7" without GRAAL). GRAAL is already installed and the operations without adaptive optics were commissioned in 2015. We discuss here the latest updates on performance from HAWK-I without Adaptive Optics (AO) and the preparation for the commissioning of the system GRAAL+HAWK-I.

SPIFFI is an AO-fed integral field spectrograph operating as part of SINFONI on the VLT, which will be upgraded and reused as SPIFFIER in the new VLT instrument ERIS. In January 2016, we used new technology developments to perform an early upgrade to optical subsystems in the SPIFFI instrument so ongoing scientific programs can make use of enhanced performance before ERIS arrives in 2020. We report on the upgraded components and the performance of SPIFFI after the upgrade, including gains in throughput and spatial and spectral resolution. We show results from re-commissioning, highlighting the potential for scientific programs to use the capabilities of the upgraded SPIFFI. Finally, we discuss the additional upgrades for SPIFFIER which will be implemented before it is integrated into ERIS.

The adaptive optics (AO) assisted CRIRES instrument is an IR (0.92 - 5.2 μm) high-resolution spectrograph was in operation from 2006 to 2014 at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory. CRIRES was a unique instrument, accessing a parameter space (wavelength range and spectral resolution) up to now largely uncharted. It consisted of a single-order spectrograph providing long-slit (40 arcsecond) spectroscopy with a resolving power up to R=100 000. However the setup was limited to a narrow, single-shot, spectral range of about 1/70 of the central wavelength, resulting in low observing efficiency for many scientific programmes requiring a broad spectral coverage. The CRIRES upgrade project, CRIRES⁺, transforms this VLT instrument into a cross-dispersed spectrograph to increase the simultaneously covered wavelength range by a factor of ten. A new and larger detector focal plane array of three Hawaii 2RG detectors with 5.3 μm cut-off wavelength will replace the existing detectors. For advanced wavelength calibration, custom-made absorption gas cells and an etalon system will be added. A spectro-polarimetric unit will allow the recording of circular and linear polarized spectra. This upgrade will be supported by dedicated data reduction software allowing the community to take full advantage of the new capabilities offered by CRIRES⁺. CRIRES⁺ has now entered its assembly and integration phase and will return with all new capabilities by the beginning of 2018 to the Very Large Telescope in Chile. This article will provide the reader with an update of the current status of the instrument as well as the remaining steps until final installation at the Paranal Observatory.

The combination of Lucky Imaging with a low order adaptive optics system was demonstrated very successfully on the Palomar 5m telescope nearly 10 years ago. It is still the only system to give such high-resolution images in the visible or near infrared on ground-based telescope of faint astronomical targets. The development of AOLI for deployment initially on the WHT 4.2 m telescope in La Palma, Canary Islands, will be described in this paper. In particular, we will look at the design and status of our low order curvature wavefront sensor which has been somewhat simplified to make it more efficient, ensuring coverage over much of the sky with natural guide stars as reference object. AOLI uses optically butted electron multiplying CCDs to give an imaging array of 2000 x 2000 pixels.

LINC-NIRVANA is an innovative, high-resolution near-infrared imager for the Large Binocular Telescope. Its Multi- Conjugate Adaptive Optics system uses natural guide-stars and provides high sky coverage for single-eye, binocular, and eventually, interferometric observations. We report on final lab integration and system level testing, as well as technical and logistical challenges of shipping and installing a large, delicate, complex instrument. LINC-NIRVANA is currently at LBT undergoing final alignment and tests before First Light late this fall. Managing the transition to operations involves the interactions between telescope alignment and calibration, commissioning of the instrument, and executing the Early Science plan.

The Coronagraphic High Angular Resolution Imaging Spectrograph (CHARIS) is an integral field spectrograph (IFS) that has been built for the Subaru telescope. CHARIS has two imaging modes; the high-resolution mode is R82, R69, and R82 in J, H, and K bands respectively while the low-resolution discovery mode uses a second low-resolution prism with R19 spanning 1.15-2.37 microns (J+H+K bands). The discovery mode is meant to augment the low inner working angle of the Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) adaptive optics system, which feeds CHARIS a coronagraphic image. The goal is to detect and characterize brown dwarfs and hot Jovian planets down to contrasts five orders of magnitude dimmer than their parent star at an inner working angle as low as 80 milliarcseconds. CHARIS constrains spectral crosstalk through several key aspects of the optical design. Additionally, the repeatability of alignment of certain optical components is critical to the calibrations required for the data pipeline. Specifically, the relative alignment of the lenslet array, prism, and detector must be highly stable and repeatable between imaging modes. We report on the measured repeatability and stability of these mechanisms, measurements of spectral crosstalk in the instrument, and the propagation of these errors through the data pipeline. Another key design feature of CHARIS is the prism, which pairs Barium Fluoride with Ohara L-BBH2 high index glass. The dispersion of the prism is significantly more uniform than other glass choices, and the CHARIS prisms represent the first NIR astronomical instrument that uses L-BBH2 as the high index material. This material choice was key to the utility of the discovery mode, so significant efforts were put into cryogenic characterization of the material. The final performance of the prism assemblies in their operating environment is described in detail. The spectrograph is going through final alignment, cryogenic cycling, and is being delivered to the Subaru telescope in April 2016. This paper is a report on the laboratory performance of the spectrograph, and its current status in the commissioning process so that observers will better understand the instrument capabilities. We will also discuss the lessons learned during the testing process and their impact on future high-contrast imaging spectrographs for wavefront control.

FRIDA is a diffraction-limited imager and integral-field spectrometer that is being built for the adaptive-optics focus of the Gran Telescopio Canarias. In imaging mode FRIDA will provide scales of 0.010, 0.020 and 0.040 arcsec/pixel and in IFS mode spectral resolutions of 1500, 4000 and 30,000. FRIDA is starting systems integration and is scheduled to complete fully integrated system tests at the laboratory by the end of 2017 and to be delivered to GTC shortly thereafter. In this contribution we present a summary of its design, fabrication, current status and potential scientific applications.

For several years, we have been developing vortex phase masks based on sub-wavelength gratings, known as Annular Groove Phase Masks. Etched onto diamond substrates, these AGPMs are currently designed to be used in the thermal infrared (ranging from 3 to 13 μm). Our AGPMs were first installed on VLT/NACO and VLT/VISIR in 2012, followed by LBT/LMIRCam in 2013 and Keck/NIRC2 in 2015. In this paper, we review the development, commissioning, on-sky performance, and early scientific results of these new coronagraphic modes and report on the lessons learned. We conclude with perspectives for future developments and applications.

High-order wavefront correction is not only beneficial for high-contrast imaging, but also spectroscopy. The size of a spectrograph can be decoupled from the size of the telescope aperture by moving to the diffraction limit which has strong implications for ELT based instrument design. Here we present the construction and characterization of an extremely efficient single-mode fiber feed behind an extreme adaptive optics system (SCExAO). We show that this feed can indeed be utilized to great success by photonic-based spectrographs. We present metrics to quantify the system performance and some preliminary spectra delivered by the compact spectrograph.

The Balloon Experimental Twin Telescope for Infrared Interferometry (BETTII) is a balloon-borne, far-infrared direct detection interferometer with a baseline of 8 m and two collectors of 50 cm. It is designed to study galactic clustered star formation by providing spatially-resolved spectroscopy of nearby star clusters. It is being assembled and tested at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for a first flight in Fall 2016. We report on recent progress concerning the pointing control system and discuss the overall status of the project as it gets ready for its commissioning flight.

In this invited paper, we implement a new way to study the stellar oscillations, pulsations and their evolutionary properties with long uninterrupted and continuous precision observations over 150 days from the ground, and without the regular interruptions imposed by the earth rotation. PAIX–First Robotic Antarctica Polar Mission– gives a new insight to cope with unresolved stellar enigma and stellar oscillation challenges and offers a great opportunity to benefit from an access to the best astronomical site on Earth –DomeC–. The project is made of low cost commercial components, and achieves astrophysical measurement time-series of stellar physics fields, challenging photometry from space that shows large gaps in terms of flexibility during the observing runs, the choice of targets, the repair of failures and the inexorable high costs. PAIX has yet more advantages than space missions in observing in UBV RI bands and then collecting unprecedented simultaneous multicolor light curves of several targets. We give a brief history of the Astronomy in Antarctica and describe the first polar robotized mission PAIX and the outcome of stellar physics from the heart of Antarctica during several polar nights. We briefly discuss our first results and perspectives on the pulsating stars and its evolution from Antarctica, especially the connection between temporal hydrodynamic phenomena and cyclic modulations. Finally, we highlight the impact of PAIX on the stellar physics study and the remaining challenges to successfully accomplish the Universe explorations under extreme conditions.

ASTEP (Antarctica Search for Transiting ExoPlanets) is a pilot project that aims at searching and characterizing transiting exoplanets from Dome C in Antarctica and to qualify this site for photometry in the visible. Two instruments were installed at Dome C and ran for six winters in total. The analysis of the collected data is nearly complete. We present the operation of the instruments, and the technical challenges, limitations, and possible solutions in light of the data quality. The instruments performed continuous observations during the winters. Human interventions are required mainly for regular inspection and ice dust removal. A defrosting system is efficient at preventing and removing ice on the mirrors. The PSF FWHM is 4.5 arcsec on average which is 2.5 times larger than the specification, and is highly variable; the causes are the poor ground-level seeing, the turbulent plumes generated by the heating system, and to a lower extent the imperfect optical alignment and focusing, and some astigmatism. We propose solutions for each of these aspects that would largely increase the PSF stability. The astrometric and guiding precisions are satisfactory and would deserve only minor improvements. Major issues are encountered with the camera shutter which did not close properly after two winters; we minimized this issue by heating the shutter and by developing specific image calibration algorithms. Finally, we summarize the site testing and science results obtained with ASTEP. Overall, the ASTEP experiment will serve as a basis to design and operate future optical and near-infrared telescopes in Antarctica.

Routine photometric monitoring at near-ultraviolet wavelengths (< 400 nm) is compromised from the ground due to highly variable atmospheric transmission and cloud cover. The GLUV project will mount a modest sized telescope (200 mm primary) on a series of long-duration high-altitude balloon flights. The wide field camera (~7 deg²) will perform high cadence (10-300 second rolling integrations) each night for campaign durations of three to six months. The principle science mission is the early-time detection of supernova shock-breakout at near-ultraviolet wavelengths. Additionally, early design analysis has shown the system is also able to probe the atmospheric composition of exoplanet atmospheres through the combination of UV transit measurements with ground-based measurements at longer wavelengths. In this presentation we consider the specifications for a long-duration balloon platform for such a mission, focusing on the necessary mission requirements (sensitivity, sky coverage, cadence etc.) and the available platform suitability. Particular attention is paid to platform flight altitude and atmospheric transmission.

We have deployed a new class of telescope, the Evryscope, which opens a new parameter space in optical astronomy - the ability to detect short time scale events across the entire sky simultaneously. The system is a gigapixel-scale array camera with an 8000 sq. deg. field of view, 13 arcsec per pixel sampling, and the ability to detect objects brighter than g = 16 in each 2-minute exposure. The Evryscope is designed to find transiting exoplanets around exotic stars, as well as detect nearby supernovae and provide continuous records of distant relativistic explosions like gamma-ray-bursts. The Evryscope uses commercially available CCDs and optics; the machine and assembly tolerances inherent in the mass production of these parts introduce problematic variations in the lens / CCD alignment which degrades image quality. We have built an automated alignment system (Robotilters) to solve this challenge. In this paper we describe the Robotilter system, mechanical and software design, image quality improvement, and current status.

HiPERCAM is a high-speed camera for the study of rapid variability in the Universe. The project is funded by a Ɛ3.5M European Research Council Advanced Grant. HiPERCAM builds on the success of our previous instrument, ULTRACAM, with very significant improvements in performance thanks to the use of the latest technologies. HiPERCAM will use 4 dichroic beamsplitters to image simultaneously in 5 optical channels covering the u’g’r’I’z’ bands. Frame rates of over 1000 per second will be achievable using an ESO CCD controller (NGC), with every frame GPS timestamped. The detectors are custom-made, frame-transfer CCDs from e2v, with 4 low noise (2.5e^-) outputs, mounted in small thermoelectrically-cooled heads operated at 180 K, resulting in virtually no dark current. The two reddest CCDs will be deep-depletion devices with anti-etaloning, providing high quantum efficiencies across the red part of the spectrum with no fringing. The instrument will also incorporate scintillation noise correction via the conjugate-plane photometry technique. The opto-mechanical chassis will make use of additive manufacturing techniques in metal to make a light-weight, rigid and temperature-invariant structure. First light is expected on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope on La Palma in 2017 (on which the field of view will be 10' with a 0.3"/pixel scale), with subsequent use planned on the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias on La Palma (on which the field of view will be 4' with a 0.11"/pixel scale) and the 3.5m New Technology Telescope in Chile.

The PAU (Physics of the Accelerating Universe) project goal is the study of dark energy with a new photometric technique aiming at obtaining photo-z resolution for Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) roughly one order of magnitude better than current photometric surveys. To accomplish this, a new large field of view camera (PAUCam) has been built and commissioned at the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). With the current WHT corrector, the camera covers ~1 degree diameter Field of View (FoV). The focal plane consists of 18 2kx4k Hamamatsu fully depleted CCDs, with high quantum efficiency up to 1 μm. To maximize the detector coverage within the FoV, filters are placed in front of the CCD's inside the camera cryostat (made of carbon fiber material) using a challenging movable tray system. The camera uses a set of 40 narrow band filters ranging from ~4400 to ~8600 angstroms complemented with six standard broad-band filters, ugrizY. Here, we describe the camera and its first commissioning results. The PAU project aims to cover roughly 100 square degrees and to obtain accurate photometric redshifts for galaxies down to i_AB ~ 22:5 detecting also galaxies down to i_AB ~ 24 with less precision in redshift. With this data set we will obtain competitive constraints in cosmological parameters using both weak lensing and galaxy clustering as main observational probes.

Over the last two decades, Optical Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence experiments have been conducted to search for either continuous or pulsed visible-light laser beacons that could be used for interstellar communication or energy transmission. Near-infrared offers a compelling window for signal transmission since there is a decrease in interstellar extinction and Galactic background compared to optical wavelengths. An innovative Near-InfraRed and Optical SETI (NIROSETI) instrument has been designed and constructed to take advantage of a new generation of fast (> 1 Ghz) low-noise near-infrared avalanche photodiodes to search for nanosecond pulsed near-infrared (850 - 1650 nm) pulses. The instrument was successfully installed and commissioned at the Nickel (1m) telescope at Lick Observatory in March 2015. We will describe the overall design of the instrument with a focus on methods developed for data acquisition and reduction for near-infrared SETI. Time and height analyses of the pulses produced by the detectors are performed to search for periodicity and coincidences in the signals. We will further discuss our NIROSETI survey plans.

The J-PAS project will perform a five-year survey of the northern sky from a new 2.5m telescope in Teruel, Spain. In this paper the build and factory testing of the commercially supplied cryogenic camera is described. The 1.2 Giga-pixel focal plane is contained within a novel liquid-nitrogen cooled vacuum cryostat, which maintains the flatness for the cooled, 0.45m diameter focal plane to better than 27 μm peak to valley. The cooling system controls the focal plane to a temperature of -100°C with a variation across the focal plane of better than 2.5oC and a stability of better than +/- 0.5 °C over the long periods of operation required. The proximity drive electronics achieves total system level noise performance better than 5 e- from the 224-channel CCD system.

The CARMENES instrument is a pair of high-resolution (R⪆80,000) spectrographs covering the wavelength range from 0.52 to 1.71 μm, optimized for precise radial velocity measurements. It was installed and commissioned at the 3.5m telescope of the Calar Alto observatory in Southern Spain in 2015. The first large science program of CARMENES is a survey of ~ 300 M dwarfs, which started on Jan 1, 2016. We present an overview of all subsystems of CARMENES (front end, fiber system, visible-light spectrograph, near-infrared spectrograph, calibration units, etalons, facility control, interlock system, instrument control system, data reduction pipeline, data flow, and archive), and give an overview of the assembly, integration, verification, and commissioning phases of the project. We show initial results and discuss further plans for the scientific use of CARMENES.

The Kepler mission highlighted that precision radial velocity (PRV) follow-up is a real bottleneck in supporting transiting exoplanet surveys. The limited availability of PRV instruments, and the desire to break the “1 m/s” precision barrier, prompted the formation of a NASA-NSF collaboration ‘NN-EXPLORE’ to call for proposals designing a new Extreme Precision Doppler Spectrograph (EPDS). By securing a significant fraction of telescope time on the 3.5m WIYN at Kitt Peak, and aiming for unprecedented long-term precision, the EPDS instrument will provide a unique tool for U.S. astronomers in characterizing exoplanet candidates identified by TESS. One of the two funded instrument concept studies is led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in consortium with Lincoln Laboratories, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Carnegie Observatories. This paper describes the instrument concept WISDOM (WIYN Spectrograph for DOppler Monitoring) prepared by this team. WISDOM is a fiber fed, environmentally controlled, high resolution (R=110k), asymmetric white-pupil echelle spectrograph, covering a wide 380-1300nm wavelength region. Its R4 and R6 echelle gratings provide the main dispersion, symmetrically mounted on either side of a vertically aligned, vacuum-enclosed carbon fiber optical bench. Each grating feeds two cameras and thus the resulting wavelength range per camera is narrow enough that the VPHG cross-dispersers and employed anti-reflection coatings are highly efficient. The instrument operates near room temperature, and so thermal background for the near-infrared arm is mitigated by thermal blocking filters and a short (1.7μm) cutoff HgCdTe detector. To achieve high resolution while maintaining small overall instrument size (100/125mm beam diameter), imposed by the limited available space within the observatory building, we chose to slice the telescope pupil 6 ways before coupling light into fibers. An atmospheric dispersion corrector and fast tip-tilt system assures maximal light gathering within the 1.2″ entrance aperture. The six octagonal fibers corresponding to each slice of the pupil employ ball-lens double scramblers to stabilize the near- and far-fields. Three apiece are coupled into each of two rectangular fibers, to mitigate modal nose and present a rectilinear illumination pattern at the spectrograph's slit plane. Wavelength solutions are derived from ThAr lamps and an extremely wide coverage dual-channel laser frequency comb. Data is reduced on the fly for evaluation by a custom pipeline, while daily archives and extended scope data reduction products are stored on NExScI servers, also managing archives and access privileges for GTO and GO programs. Note: individual papers, submitted along this main paper, describe the details of subsystems such as the optical design (Barnes et al., 9908-247), the fiber link design (Fűrész et al., 9908-281), and the pupil slicer (Egan et al., 9912-183).

The Gemini High-Resolution Optical SpecTrograph (GHOST) is the newest instrument chosen for the Gemini South telescope. It is being developed by a collaboration between the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO), the NRC - Herzberg in Canada and the Australian National University (ANU). Using recent technological advances and several novel concepts it will deliver spectroscopy with R>50,000 for up to 2 objects simultaneously or R>75,000 for a single object. GHOST uses a fiber-image-slicer to allow use of a much smaller spectrograph than that nominally required by the resolution-slit–width product. With its fiber feed, we expect GHOST to have a sensitivity in the wavelength range between 363-950 nm that equals or exceeds that of similar directly-fed instruments on world-class facilities. GHOST has entered the build phase. We report the status of the instrument and describe the technical advances and the novel aspects, such as the lenslet-based slit reformatting. Finally, we describe the unique scientific role this instrument will have in an international context, from exoplanets through stellar elemental abundances to the distant Universe. Keywords: Gemini, spectrograph, spectroscopy, ́echelle, high resolution, radial velocity, fiber image slicer, integral field unit.

We report on the development and construction of a new fiber-fed, red-optical, high-precision radial-velocity spectrograph for one of the twin 6.5m Magellan Telescopes in Chile. MAROON-X will be optimized to find and characterize rocky planets around nearby M dwarfs with an intrinsic per measurement noise floor below 1ms^-1. The instrument is based on a commercial echelle spectrograph customized for high stability and throughput. A microlens array based pupil slicer and double scrambler, as well as a rubidium-referenced etalon comb calibrator will turn this spectrograph into a high-precision radial-velocity machine. MAROON-X will undergo extensive lab tests in the second half of 2016.

We are developing a stable and precise spectrograph for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) named “iLocater.” The instrument comprises three principal components: a cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph that operates in the YJ-bands (0.97-1.30 μm), a fiber-injection acquisition camera system, and a wavelength calibration unit. iLocater will deliver high spectral resolution (R~150,000-240,000) measurements that permit novel studies of stellar and substellar objects in the solar neighborhood including extrasolar planets. Unlike previous planet-finding instruments, which are seeing-limited, iLocater operates at the diffraction limit and uses single mode fibers to eliminate the effects of modal noise entirely. By receiving starlight from two 8.4m diameter telescopes that each use “extreme” adaptive optics (AO), iLocater shows promise to overcome the limitations that prevent existing instruments from generating sub-meter-per-second radial velocity (RV) precision. Although optimized for the characterization of low-mass planets using the Doppler technique, iLocater will also advance areas of research that involve crowded fields, line-blanketing, and weak absorption lines.

GIARPS (GIAno and haRPS) is a project devoted to have on the same focal station of the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) both the high resolution spectrographs HARPS-N (VIS) and GIANO (NIR) working simultaneously. This could be considered the first and unique worldwide instrument providing cross-dispersed echelle spectroscopy at a high resolution (R=115,000 in the visual and R=50,000 in the IR) and over in a wide spectral range (0.383 - 2.45 μm) in a single exposure. The science case is very broad, given the versatility of such an instrument and the large wavelength range. A number of outstanding science cases encompassing mainly extra-solar planet science starting from rocky planet search and hot Jupiters, atmosphere characterization can be considered. Furthermore both instrument can measure high precision radial velocity by means the simultaneous thorium technique (HARPS - N) and absorbing cell technique (GIANO) in a single exposure. Other science cases are also possible. Young stars and proto- planetary disks, cool stars and stellar populations, moving minor bodies in the solar system, bursting young stellar objects, cataclysmic variables and X-ray binary transients in our Galaxy, supernovae up to gamma-ray bursts in the very distant and young Universe, can take advantage of the unicity of this facility both in terms of contemporaneous wide wavelength range and high resolution spectroscopy.

High-precision astronomical spectrographs routinely employed to detect planets via the radial velocity method are generally large and expensive instruments. We present our progress developing a compact spectrograph using commercial ‘off-the-shelf’ components that can achieve similar precision at a fraction of the cost. The spectrograph, PIMMS Visible, has a resolving power of R-50,000 operating in the visible regime. We are able to obtain RMS velocity precisions of better than ~1 m/s by calibrating with a stabilised single-mode etalon. As a technology proof we attempt to detect the solar 5- minute period p-mode oscillations (a few m/s signal).

The High Efficiency and Resolution Multi Element Spectrograph, HERMES is a facility-class optical spectrograph for the AAT. It is designed primarily for Galactic Archeology, the first major attempt to create a detailed understanding of galaxy formation and evolution by studying the history of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. The goal of the Galactic Archeology with Hermes (GALAH) survey is to reconstruct the mass assembly history of the Milky Way, through a detailed spatially tagged abundance study of one million stars. The spectrograph is based at the Anglo Australian Telescope (AAT) and is fed by the existing 2dF robotic fiber positioning system. The spectrograph uses VPH-gratings to achieve a spectral resolving power of 28,000 in standard mode and also provides a high-resolution mode ranging between 40,000 to 50,000 using a slit mask. The GALAH survey requires a SNR greater than 100 for a star brightness of V=14. The total spectral coverage of the four channels is about 100nm between 370 and 1000nm for up to 392 simultaneous targets within the 2- degree field of view. Hermes was commissioned in late 2013, with the GALAH Pilot starting in parallel with the commissioning. The GALAH survey started in early 2014 is currently about 33% complete. We present a description of the motivating science; an overview the instrument; and a status report on GALAH Survey.

Hector^[1,2,3] will be the new massively-multiplexed integral field spectroscopy (IFS) instrument for the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) in Australia and the next main dark-time instrument for the observatory. Based on the success of the SAMI instrument, which is undertaking a 3400-galaxy survey, the integral field unit (IFU) imaging fibre bundle (hexabundle) technology under-pinning SAMI is being improved to a new innovative design for Hector. The distribution of hexabundle angular sizes is matched to the galaxy survey properties in order to image 90% of galaxies out to 2 effective radii. 50-100 of these IFU imaging bundles will be positioned by ‘starbug’ robots across a new 3-degree field corrector top end to be purpose-built for the AAT. Many thousand fibres will then be fed into new replicable spectrographs. Fundamentally new science will be achieved compared to existing instruments due to Hector's wider field of view (3 degrees), high positioning efficiency using starbugs, higher spectroscopic resolution (R=3000-5500 from 3727-7761Å, with a possible redder extension later) and large IFUs (up to 30 arcsec diameter with 61-217 fibre cores). A 100,000 galaxy IFS survey with Hector will decrypt how the accretion and merger history and large-scale environment made every galaxy different in its morphology and star formation history. The high resolution, particularly in the blue, will make Hector the only instrument to be able to measure higher-order kinematics for galaxies down to much lower velocity dispersion than in current large IFS galaxy surveys, opening up a wealth of new nearby galaxy science.

We present the Final Design of the WEAVE next-generation spectroscopy facility for the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), together with a status update on the details of manufacturing, integration and the overall project schedule now that all the major fabrication contracts are in place. We also present a summary of the current planning behind the 5-year initial phase of survey operations. WEAVE will provide optical ground-based follow up of ground-based (LOFAR) and space-based (Gaia) surveys. WEAVE is a multi-object and multi-IFU facility utilizing a new 2-degree prime focus field of view at the WHT, with a buffered pick-and-place positioner system hosting 1000 multi-object (MOS) fibres, 20 integral field units, or a single large IFU for each observation. The fibres are fed to a single (dual-beam) spectrograph, with total of 16k spectral pixels, located within the WHT GHRIL enclosure on the telescope Nasmyth platform, supporting observations at R~5000 over the full 370-1000nm wavelength range in a single exposure, or a high resolution mode with limited coverage in each arm at R~20000. The project is now in the manufacturing and integration phase with first light expected for early of 2018.

The Visible Integral-field Replicable Unit Spectrograph (VIRUS) consists of 156 identical spectrographs (arrayed as 78 pairs) fed by 35,000 fibers, each 1.5 arcsec diameter, at the focus of the upgraded 10 m Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET). VIRUS has a fixed bandpass of 350-550 nm and resolving power R~700. VIRUS is the first example of industrial-scale replication applied to optical astronomy and is capable of surveying large areas of sky, spectrally. The VIRUS concept offers significant savings of engineering effort, cost, and schedule when compared to traditional instruments. The main motivator for VIRUS is to map the evolution of dark energy for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX‡), using 0.8M Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies as tracers. The VIRUS array is undergoing staged deployment during 2016 and 2017. It will provide a powerful new facility instrument for the HET, well suited to the survey niche of the telescope, and will open up large spectroscopic surveys of the emission line universe for the first time. We will review the production, lessons learned in reaching volume production, characterization, and first deployment of this massive instrument.

VIRUS is a massively replicated spectrograph built for HETDEX, the Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment. It consists of 156 channels within 78 units fed by 34944 fibers over the 22 arcminute field of the upgraded HET. VIRUS covers a relatively narrow bandpass (350-550nm) at low resolution (R ~ 700) to target the emission of Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs) for HETDEX. VIRUS is a first demonstration of industrial style assembly line replication in optical astronomy. Installation and testing of VIRUS units began in November of 2015. This winter we celebrated the first on sky instrument activity of the upgraded HET, using a VIRUS unit and LRS2-R (the upgraded facility Low Resolution Spectrograph for the HET). Here we describe progress in VIRUS installation and commissioning through June 2016. We include early sky data obtained to characterize spectrograph performance and on sky performance of the newly upgraded HET. As part of the instrumentation for first science light at the HET, the IFU fed spectrographs were used to test a full range of telescope system functionality including the field calibration unit (FCU).We also use placement of strategic IFUs to map the new HET field to the fiber placement, and demonstrate actuation of the dithering mechanism key to HETDEX observations.

We report the results on the EMIR¹ (Espectrógrafo Multiobjeto Infra-Rojo) performances after the commissioning period of the instrument at the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). EMIR is one of the first common user instruments for the GTC, the 10 meter telescope operating at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain). EMIR is being built by a Consortium of Spanish and French institutes led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). EMIR is primarily designed to be operated as a MOS in the K band, but offers a wide range of observing modes, including imaging and spectroscopy, both long slit and multiobject, in the wavelength range 0.9 to 2.5 μm. The development and fabrication of EMIR is funded by GRANTECAN and the Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica (National Plan for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Spain). After an extensive and intensive period of system verification at the IAC, EMIR was shipped to the GTC on May 2016 for its integration at the Nasmyth platform. Once in the observatory, several tests were conducted to ensure the functionality of EMIR at the telescope, in particular that of the ECS (EMIR Control System) which has to be fully embedded into the GCS (GTC Control System) so as to become an integral part of it. During the commissioning, the main capabilities of EMIR and its combined operation with the GTC are tested and the ECS are modified to its final form. This contribution reports on the details of the EMIR operation at the GTC obtained so far, on the first commissioning period.

MEGARA (Multi-Espectrógrafo en GTC de Alta Resolución para Astronomía) is an optical Integral-Field Unit (IFU) and Multi-Object Spectrograph (MOS) designed for the GTC 10.4m telescope in La Palma that is being built by a Consortium led by UCM (Spain) that also includes INAOE (Mexico), IAA-CSIC (Spain), and UPM (Spain). The instrument is currently finishing AIV and will be sent to GTC on November 2016 for its on-sky commissioning on April 2017. The MEGARA IFU fiber bundle (LCB) covers 12.5x11.3 arcsec2 with a spaxel size of 0.62 arcsec while the MEGARA MOS mode allows observing up to 92 objects in a region of 3.5x3.5 arcmin² around the IFU. The IFU and MOS modes of MEGARA will provide identical intermediate-to-high spectral resolutions (RFWHM~6,000, 12,000 and 18,700, respectively for the low-, mid- and high-resolution Volume Phase Holographic gratings) in the range 3700-9800ÅÅ. An x-y mechanism placed at the pseudo-slit position allows (1) exchanging between the two observing modes and (2) focusing the spectrograph for each VPH setup. The spectrograph is a collimator-camera system that has a total of 11 VPHs simultaneously available (out of the 18 VPHs designed and being built) that are placed in the pupil by means of a wheel and an insertion mechanism. The custom-made cryostat hosts a 4kx4k 15-μm CCD. The unique characteristics of MEGARA in terms of throughput and versatility and the unsurpassed collecting are of GTC make of this instrument the most efficient tool to date to analyze astrophysical objects at intermediate spectral resolutions. In these proceedings we present a summary of the instrument characteristics and the results from the AIV phase. All subsystems have been successfully integrated and the system-level AIV phase is progressing as expected.

The Mid-resolution InfRAreD Astronomical Spectrograph (MIRADAS, a near-infrared multi-object echelle spectrograph operating at spectral resolution R=20,000 over the 1-2.5μm bandpass) was selected by the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) partnership as the next-generation near-infrared spectrograph for the world's largest optical/infrared telescope, and is being developed by an international consortium. The MIRADAS consortium includes the University of Florida, Universidad de Barcelona, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya, as well as probe arm industrial partner A-V-S (Spain), with more than 45 Science Working Group members in 10 institutions primarily in Spain, Mexico, and the USA. In this paper, we review the overall system design and project status for MIRADAS during its early fabrication phase in 2016.

PFS (Prime Focus Spectrograph), a next generation facility instrument on the 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope, is a very wide-field, massively multiplexed, optical and near-infrared spectrograph. Exploiting the Subaru prime focus, 2394 reconfigurable fibers will be distributed over the 1.3 deg field of view. The spectrograph has been designed with 3 arms of blue, red, and near-infrared cameras to simultaneously observe spectra from 380nm to 1260nm in one exposure at a resolution of ~1.6 - 2.7Å. An international collaboration is developing this instrument under the initiative of Kavli IPMU. The project is now going into the construction phase aiming at undertaking system integration in 2017-2018 and subsequently carrying out engineering operations in 2018-2019. This article gives an overview of the instrument, current project status and future paths forward.

We present an overview of the 4MOST project at the Preliminary Design Review. 4MOST is a major new wide-field, high-multiplex spectroscopic survey facility under development for the VISTA telescope of ESO. 4MOST has a broad range of science goals ranging from Galactic Archaeology and stellar physics to the high-energy physics, galaxy evolution, and cosmology. Starting in 2021, 4MOST will deploy 2436 fibres in a 4.1 square degree field-of-view using a positioner based on the tilting spine principle. The fibres will feed one high-resolution (R~20,000) and two medium resolution (R~5000) spectrographs with fixed 3-channel designs and identical 6k x 6k CCD detectors. 4MOST will have a unique operations concept in which 5-year public surveys from both the consortium and the ESO community will be combined and observed in parallel during each exposure. The 4MOST Facility Simulator (4FS) was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of this observing concept, showing that we can expect to observe more than 25 million objects in each 5-year survey period and will eventually be used to plan and conduct the actual survey.

The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) project will transform the CFHT 3.6m optical telescope into a 10m class dedicated multi-object spectroscopic facility, with an ability to simultaneously measure thousands of objects with a spectral resolution range spanning 2,000 to 40,000. MSE will develop two spectrographic facilities to meet the science requirements. These are respectively, the Low/Medium Resolution spectrographs (LMRS) and High Resolution spectrographs (HRS). Multi-object high resolution spectrographs with total of 1,156 fibers is a big challenge, one that has never been attempted for a 10m class telescope. To date, most spectral survey facilities work in single order low/medium resolution mode, and only a few Wide Field Spectrographs (WFS) provide a cross-dispersion high resolution mode with a limited number of orders. Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology (NIAOT) propose a conceptual design with the use of novel image slicer arrays and single order immersed Volume Phase Holographic (VPH) grating for the MSE multi-object high resolution spectrographs. The conceptual scheme contains six identical fiber-link spectrographs, each of which simultaneously covers three restricted bands (λ/30, λ/30, λ/15) in the optical regime, with spectral resolution of 40,000 in Blue/Visible bands (400nm / 490nm) and 20,000 in Red band (650nm). The details of the design is presented in this paper.

ULTIMATE is an instrument concept under development at the AAO, for the Subaru Telescope, which will have the unique combination of ground layer adaptive optics feeding multiple deployable integral field units. This will allow ULTIMATE to probe unexplored parameter space, enabling science cases such as the evolution of galaxies at z ~ 0:5 to 1.5, and the dark matter content of the inner part of our Galaxy. ULTIMATE will use Starbugs to position between 7 and 13 IFUs over a 14 × 8 arcmin field-of-view, pro- vided by a new wide-field corrector. All Starbugs can be positioned simultaneously, to an accuracy of better than 5 milli-arcsec within the typical slew-time of the telescope, allowing for very efficient re-configuration between observations. The IFUs will feed either the near-infrared nuMOIRCS or the visible/ near-infrared PFS spectrographs, or both. Future possible upgrades include the possibility of purpose built spectrographs and incorporating OH suppression using fibre Bragg gratings. We describe the science case and resulting design requirements, the baseline instrument concept, and the expected performance of the instrument.