First light of SINFONI at the VLT

17 T he ESO STC recommended the construction of SINFONI (“Spectrograph for INtegral Field Observation in the Near-Infrared”) in October 1997. The instrument was conceived as the combination of an Adaptive Optics facility (the AO-Module), developed by ESO, and SPIFFI (SPectrometer for Infrared Faint Field Imaging), a Near Infrared Integral Field Spectrograph developed by the MPE. It merges in one instrument the experience gained by ESO in Adaptive Optics (AO) with the development of the MACAO product line and the experience of MPE in integral field spectrometry with 3D, the world’s first infrared integral field spectrometer. A two year detailed design phase was initiated in 2000. At the final design review (2001), the board recommended the upgrade of the instrument to a higher spectral resolution (nearly 4000) with a 2048 by 2048 pixel infrared detector. NOVA joined the consortium at that time to undertake the development of the so-called ‘2K Camera’ scaling the spectral images to the size of the new detector.