1 m – APOGEE Feed

PowerPoint Presentation

1 m APOGEE FeedJon HoltzmanDiane Feuillet(NMSU)

Construction and implementation of fiber feed from NMSU 1m to SDSS APOGEE funded by SDSS-III project and, especially, time of Nick MacDonaldBuilds off existing instrument at NA2 port on 1m, which has a pickoff mirror and camera for acquisition and guiding; note no image derotator at NA2NMSU 1m has been used primarily in robotic mode for imaging

Fiber installed in the fallSoftware developed for control of APOGEE from 1m control systemInitial test on handful of nightsInitial implementation of robotic observing for bright stars, 50+ stars per night seems plausibleTelescope performance (pointing stability) poorer than expected, investigation in progressThroughput seems poorer than expectedOnly crude data reduction so farSky subtraction and, especially, telluric correction TBD

Work to date

StatusWhile we hope for improved performance, even with current performance, bright star program is probably feasibleOriginal commitment was to give 3 nights/month to SDSS in exchange for implementation and use of instrumentNMSU potentially interested in using significantly more , if robotic observing is feasible (but still would consider as collaboration data)In context of SDSS-IV, allows additional use of a northern spectrograph

As initially suggested by Leo Girardi, nearby sample of giants with known distancesHomogeneous sample with APOGEE Estimate agesCalibration of APOGEETest stellar evolution modelsBright calibrators, stars of special interest (e.g. s-process rich stars)Bright asteroseismology starsPlanet hostsAs capability is demonstrated, we will solicit additional proposalsRV followup for fainter stars?

Project(s)

Hope to have more time to work on this in next several months!

Will try to start implementation of bright star program in next dark run