Designing the acousto-optical cell for optical spectrometer incorporated into the Guillermo Haro astrophysical observatory

摘要

Optical spectrometer of the Guillermo Haro astrophysical observatory (Mexico) exploits mechanically removable traditional static diffraction gratings as dispersive elements. There is a set of the static gratings with the slit-density 50 -600 lines/mm and optical apertures 9 cm × 9 cm that provide the first order spectral resolution from 9.6 to 0.8 A/pixel, respectively, in the range 400 - 1000 nm. However, the needed mechanical manipulations, namely, replacing the static diffraction gratings with various resolutions and following recalibration of spectrometer within studying even the same object are inconvenient and lead to losing rather expensive observation time. We suggest exploiting an acousto-optical cell, i.e. the dynamic diffraction grating tunable electronically, as dispersive element in that spectrometer. Involving the acousto-optical technique, which can potentially provide electronic control over the spectral resolution and the range of observations, leads to possible eliminating the above-mentioned demerits and to improving the efficiency of analysis.