CHIRON Spectrometer
The Yale group, together with Andrei Tokovinin at CTIO, designed and built the CHIRON spectrometer (commissioned in January 2011). This instrument was funded by the NSF MRI program with funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
CHIRON is a fiber-fed Echelle spectrometer, that will replace the Echelle at the 1.5m SMARTS telescope in Chile with greatly enhanced throughput. Spectral resolution R=90,000 is achieved with an image slicer, however a R=120,000 slit mask (that incurs larger light losses) is also available. The optical and optomechanical design combines critical parts developed in house with commercial components, in order to keep the cost reasonable while achieving high performance.
CHIRON will be used to carry out to a high-cadence search for low mass planets around Alpha Centauri.
Design
Schwab, C., Spronck, J. F. P., Tokovinin, A., Fischer, D. A., 2010 "Design of the CHIRON high-resolution spectrometer at CTIO" Proc. SPIE, Vol. 7735, 77354G
Technical documents for the CHIRON spectrometer can be found on Andrei Tokovinin's site.
