Speaker
Dr
Jennifer L. Marshall
(Texas A&M University)
Description
DECal is a new spectrophotometric calibration system for the CTIO Blanco 4 meter telescope. It is currently being installed as part of the Dark Energy Survey. The system uses a tunable light source to measure the wavelength-dependent instrumental response function of the total telescope+instrument in the range 300<λ<1100nm. The calibration will be performed regularly to monitor changes in telescope throughput during the 5 year Dark Energy Survey project. DECal consists of a monochromator-based tunable light source that is projected on a Lambertian flat field screen using a broadband “line to spot“ fiber bundle and an engineered diffuser. Several calibrated photodiodes positioned along the beam monitor the telescope throughput as a function of wavelength. DECal has a peak output power of 2 mW, equivalent to a flux of approximately 800 photons/s/pixel on DECam.
Primary author
Dr
Jennifer L. Marshall
(Texas A&M University)
Co-authors
Prof.
D. L. DePoy
(Texas A&M University)
Emily Martin
(Texas A&M University)
Jason Wise
(Texas A&M University)
Jean-Philippe Rheault
(Texas A&M University)
Richard Allen
(Texas A&M University)
Travis Prochaska
(Texas A&M University)