CaltechAUTHORS
Published September 24, 2012 | Version Published
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The Keck Cosmic Web Imager: a capable new integral field spectrograph for the W. M. Keck Observatory

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon W.M. Keck Observatory
  • 3. ROR icon University of California, Santa Cruz
  • 4. ROR icon Jet Propulsion Lab

Contributors

Abstract

The Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) is a new facility instrument being developed for the W. M. Keck Observatory and funded for construction by the Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP) of the National Science Foundation (NSF). KCWI is a bench-mounted spectrograph for the Keck II right Nasmyth focal station, providing integral field spectroscopy over a seeing-limited field up to 20"x33" in extent. Selectable Volume Phase Holographic (VPH) gratings provide high efficiency and spectral resolution in the range of 1000 to 20000. The dual-beam design of KCWI passed a Preliminary Design Review in summer 2011. The detailed design of the KCWI blue channel (350 to 700 nm) is now nearly complete, with the red channel (530 to 1050 nm) planned for a phased implementation contingent upon additional funding. KCWI builds on the experience of the Caltech team in implementing the Cosmic Web Imager (CWI), in operation since 2009 at Palomar Observatory. KCWI adds considerable flexibility to the CWI design, and will take full advantage of the excellent seeing and dark sky above Mauna Kea with a selectable nod-and-shuffle observing mode. In this paper, models of the expected KCWI sensitivity and background subtraction capability are presented, along with a detailed description of the instrument design. The KCWI team is lead by Caltech (project management, design and implementation) in partnership with the University of California at Santa Cruz (camera optical and mechanical design) and the W. M. Keck Observatory (program oversight and observatory interfaces).

Additional Information

© 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). This material is based upon work supported by AURA through the National Science Foundation under Scientific Program Order No. 5 as issued for support of the Telescope Systems Instrumentation Program (TSIP), in accordance with Proposal No. AST-0335461 submitted by AURA. We also acknowledge and thank the Caltech Optical Observatories for continued support of both CWI and KCWI.

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
37748
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20130403-143938745

Funding

Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)
NSF
AST-0335461
Caltech Optical Observatories

Dates

Created
2013-04-03
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-09
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Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Space Astrophysics Laboratory
Series Name
Proceedings of SPIE
Series Volume or Issue Number
8446