Deployment of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope wide field upgrade

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) is an innovative large telescope located in West Texas at the McDonald Observatory. The HET operates with a fixed segmented primary and has a tracker, which moves the four-mirror optical corrector and prime focus instrument package to track the sidereal and non-sidereal motions of objects. A major upgrade of the HET is in progress that will substantially increase the pupil size to 10 meters (from 9.2 m) and the field of view to 22 arcminutes (from 4 arcminutes) by replacing the corrector, tracker, and prime focus instrument package. In addition to supporting existing instruments, and a new low resolution spectrograph, this wide field upgrade will feed a revolutionary new integral field spectrograph called VIRUS, in support of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX§). The upgrade is being installed and this paper discusses the current status.

[1]  D. O. Astronomy,et al.  The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX): Description and Early Pilot Survey Results , 2008, 0806.0183.

[2]  Hanshin Lee,et al.  Design, alignment, and deployment of the Hobby Eberly Telescope prime focus instrument package , 2014, Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation.

[3]  Gary J. Hill,et al.  Analysis of active alignment control of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope wide-field corrector using Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors , 2010, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[4]  John A. Booth,et al.  Use of failure modes and effects analysis in design of the tracker system for the HET wide-field upgrade , 2012, Other Conferences.

[5]  Hanshin Lee,et al.  Metrology systems of Hobby-Eberly Telescope wide field upgrade , 2012, Other Conferences.

[6]  Taylor S. Chonis,et al.  Development of a cryogenic system for the VIRUS array of 150 spectrographs for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2010, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[7]  John A. Booth,et al.  Performance verification testing for HET wide-field upgrade tracker in the laboratory , 2010, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[8]  F. Grupp,et al.  VIRUS: A hugely replicated integral field spectrograph for HETDEX , 2006 .

[9]  Ralf Bender,et al.  VIRUS: a massively replicated 33k fiber integral field spectrograph for the upgraded Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2010, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[10]  John A. Booth,et al.  Testing, characterization, and control of a multi-axis, high precision drive system for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Wide Field Upgrade , 2012, Other Conferences.

[11]  John A. Booth,et al.  Design, testing, and installation of a high-precision hexapod for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope dark energy experiment (HETDEX) , 2012, Other Conferences.

[12]  Gary J. Hill,et al.  LRS2: design, assembly, testing, and commissioning of the second-generation low-resolution spectrograph for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2016, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[13]  Phillip J. MacQueen,et al.  The cryogenic system for the VIRUS array of spectrographs on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2008, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[14]  Ralf Bender,et al.  VIRUS: production of a massively replicated 33k fiber integral field spectrograph for the upgraded Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2012, Other Conferences.

[15]  Povilas Palunas,et al.  Mirror Alignment Recovery System (MARS) on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2003, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[16]  Ian M. Soukup,et al.  Design and development of a long-travel positioning actuator and tandem constant force actuator safety system for the Hobby Eberly Telescope wide-field upgrade , 2010, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[17]  Povilas Palunas,et al.  The wide field upgrade for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[18]  Brian T. Murphy,et al.  Design and development of a high-precision, high-payload telescope dual-drive system , 2010, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[19]  G. Hill.  Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) , 2005 .

[20]  Hanshin Lee,et al.  Facility calibration unit of Hobby Eberly Telescope wide field upgrade , 2012, Other Conferences.

[21]  Phillip J. MacQueen,et al.  Current status of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope wide field upgrade and VIRUS , 2008, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[22]  David A. H. Buckley,et al.  Completion and commissioning of the Southern African Large Telescope , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[23]  Povilas Palunas,et al.  Present and future instrumentation for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[24]  Povilas Palunas,et al.  The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Completion Project , 2003, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[25]  Andreas Kelz,et al.  VIRUS: first deployment of the massively replicated fiber integral field spectrograph for the upgraded Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2016, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[26]  Ralf Bender,et al.  VIRUS: production and deployment of a massively replicated fiber integral field spectrograph for the upgraded Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2014, Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation.

[27]  Andreas Kelz,et al.  Design, construction, and performance of VIRUS-P: the prototype of a highly replicated integral-field spectrograph for HET , 2008, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[28]  Hanshin Lee,et al.  Current status of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope wide field upgrade , 2010, Other Conferences.

[29]  David Perry,et al.  Design and implementation of coating hardware for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope wide-field corrector , 2014, Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation.

[30]  Phillip J. MacQueen,et al.  Deployment of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope wide-field upgrade , 2016, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[31]  Hanshin Lee,et al.  Design, testing, and performance of the Hobby Eberly Telescope prime focus instrument package , 2012, Other Conferences.

[32]  James H. Burge,et al.  Development of a wide-field spherical aberration corrector for the Hobby Eberly Telescope , 2010, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[33]  John A. Booth,et al.  Laboratory performance testing, installation, and commissioning of the wide field upgrade tracker for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2014, Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation.

[34]  James R. Fowler,et al.  A control system framework for the Hobby-Eberly telescope , 2016, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[35]  James H. Burge,et al.  Delivery, installation, on-sky verification of the Hobby Eberly Telescope wide field corrector , 2016, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[36]  Richard Savage,et al.  Performance of cable isolators in the transport of large optical assemblies , 2016, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[37]  Darren L. DePoy,et al.  VIRUS instrument enclosures , 2014, Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation.

[38]  Stuart I. Barnes,et al.  Present and future instrumentation for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope , 2008, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[39]  Ian M. Soukup,et al.  HETDEX tracker control system design and implementation , 2012, Other Conferences.