KSPEC -- A NEAR-INFRARED CROSS-DISPERSED SPECTROGRAPH

KSPEC (K-Band Spectrograph) is an infrared spectrograph designed primarily for spectroscopy in the 2.0 - 2.5 micron region. It offers two different optical configurations. The first is a cross-dispersed echelle mode designed to cover the atmospheric windows from 1 - 2.5 microns in one spectral frame of 256 X 256 format on a NICMOS-3 HgCdTe detector array. This configuration of the spectrograph provides medium spectral resolution (lambda/delta-lambda ~500) for spectral classification work, emission-line detection, and redshift measurements. Alternatively, KSPEC can be equipped with a different spectrograph camera, giving a long-slit, single-order spectrum from 2.05 - 2.35 microns. The instrument uses a second NICMOS-3 infrared detector array for slit-viewing, to facilitate the acquisition of optically invisible objects, to document the slit position and to monitorit during long spectroscopic integrations. KSPEC does not contain any moving components, making it a very reliable, relatively low-cost instrument that is easy to use.