Introduction to Visible and NIR Spectrograph Design and Development for Astronomy

Level: Introductory Length: 7 hours Format: In-Person Lecture Intended Audience: The material presented in this course is intended for anyone who is developing an astronomical spectrograph or who wants to understand the various constraints, trade-offs and system-level decisions that go into the design of a visible/NIR spectrograph in order to optimize for performance. This course is ideal for a first-time instrument PI as well as graduate students and engineers who will be part of an astronomical-spectrograph development team. Description: This course provides attendees with an introduction to aerial spectrograph design and development for astronomy. The course concentrates on system configurations and performance optimization and analysis. Specific concepts to be addressed include: image quality, throughput, flexure, performance modeling and system testing. Learning Outcomes: This course will enable you to: - judge whether various vendor acceptance tests are sufficient - design efficient end-to-end testing for your spectrograph - construct different first-order design configurations that achieve a desired resolution and field-of-view - compare the relative merits of different component designs - identify the fundamental optical and mechanical principles that affect spectrograph performance - specify optical components for vendor quote and fabrication Instructor(s): Andrew I. Sheinis is the Director of Engineering at the Canada France Hawaii Telescope since 2017. This role is also often referred to as the "Chief Engineer" as it comes with the ultimate responsibility for all technical decisions made at the telescope, including operational aspects of the observatory, development of new technology and instrumentation for the telescope. Dr. Sheinis has over 30 years of experience optical and NIR technology for astronomical, defense and medical applications, over 50 publications, 7 US patents and has developed instruments for Keck, Gemini, AAO and SALT. He earned a Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California in Santa Cruz and is a Fellow of the Astronomical Society of Australia. Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2022 Course Held: 18 July 2022