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Calibration Lamps

The SOAR Instrument Support Boxes (ISBs) contain facility calibration units containing both continuum sources for flat fielding and line sources for wavelength calibration. A linear stage carrying a calibration mirror which is moved into the beam in order to direct light from the calibration unit to the instruments, and removed from the beam to observe. When in the beam a second mirror reflects the light from the telescope towards a port where a field acquisition camera can be mounted. The same stage also carries a laser projector used for alignemnt and flexure testing of the instruments.

The wavelength calibration lamps normally used with Goodman are: (1) HgAr, (2) CuHeAr, (3) Ne, and (4) Ar. In Figures 1 & 2 below, we show the HgAr and CuHeAr arc lamp spectra for all of our pre-defined spectroscopic modes.

Figure 1: HgAr lamp spectra obtained with Goodman in all of the pre-defined spectroscopic modes. Line plots of the HgAr spectra for the 300l/mm, 600l/mm, and 1200l/mm setups in PDF format can be downloaded by clicking on the links. The exposure times for all of these spectra was 1sec with the 400kHz ATTN0 readout using the 0.46" slit.

Figure 2: CuHeAr lamp spectra obtained with Goodman in all of the pre-defined spectroscopic modes. Line plots of the CuHeAr spectra for the 300l/mm, 600l/mm, and 1200l/mm setups in PDF format can be downloaded by clicking on the links. The exposure times for these spectra are 60s, 300s, 300s, 60s, 300s, 300s, 300s, 300s, 210s, 60s, and 45s for the 300l/mm grating to the 1200l/mm M7 grating, respectively, with the 400kHz ATTN0 readout using the 0.46" slit.

The line lists for the HgAr and CuHeAr spectra can be downloaded by clicking on the links. Please note that the wavelength values given in the figures and in the data files are in Angstroms.

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The Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope is a 4.1 meter aperture telescope designed to produce the best quality images of any observatory in its class in the world. It was funded by a partnership among the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, e Inovação (MCTI) da República Federativa do Brasil, the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU). SOAR is situated on Cerro Pachón at an altitude of 2,700 meters (8,775 feet) above sea level, at the western edge of the peaks of the Chilean Andes. See this webpage on how to properly acknowledge the use of SOAR data in publications.