Observational capabilities and technical solutions of a thermal and MIR instrument at E-ELT

摘要

A MIR instrumentation study for a European ELT has been performed by a Dutch consortium led by the Leiden Observatory (The Netherlands) and the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Astronomie in Heidelberg (Germany). MIR imaging and spectroscopic observational capabilities are compared to contemporary IR to sub-millimeter facilities, especially concentrating on the MIR-capabilities of JWST(MIRI). Our best effort calculation of the sensitivity for both MIR imager and spectrograph indicate a huge discovery potential in numerous areas from our planetary system to the high redshift Universe (see [6269-75] during this conference). Here we concentrate on the technical aspects of such an instrument, offering diffraction limited direct imaging capabilities over the wavelength range from 3.5 μm up to 20 μm or even 27 μm, as well as medium to high resolution spectroscopy for the same wavelength range. To make use of the extreme spatial resolution, the spectrograph is planned to include an integral field unit.