Status and first results of the Canarias infrared camera experiment (CIRCE) for the Gran Telescopio Canarias

摘要

CIRCE is a near-infrared (1-2.5 micron) imager, polarimeter and low-resolution spectrograph intended as a visitor instrument for the Gran Telescopio Canarias 10.-4m telescope. It was built largely by graduate students and postdocs, with help from the UF astronomy engineering group, and is funded by the University of Florida and the U.S. National Science Foundation. CIRCE is intended to help fill the gap in time between GTC first light and the arrival of EMIR, and will also provide the following scientific capabilities to compliment EMIR after its arrival: high-resolution imaging, narrowband imaging, high-time-resolution photometry, imaging- and spectro-polarimetry, low-resolution spectroscopy. In this poster, we review the lab testing results for CIRCE from 2013 and describe the instrument status (currently in shipment to GTC).