Fundamental physics with Espresso: Towards an accurate wavelength calibration for a precision test of the fine-structure constant
Tobias M. Schmidt, Paolo Molaro, Michael T. Murphy, Christophe Lovis, Guido Cupani, Stefano Cristiani, Francesco A. Pepe, Rafael Rebolo, Nuno C. Santos, Manuel … 展开作者
Tobias M. Schmidt, Paolo Molaro, Michael T. Murphy, Christophe Lovis, Guido Cupani, Stefano Cristiani, Francesco A. Pepe, Rafael Rebolo, Nuno C. Santos, Manuel Abreu, Vardan Adibekyan, Yann Alibert, Matteo Aliverti, Romain Allart, Carlos Allende Prieto, David Alves, Veronica Baldini, Christopher Broeg, Alexandre Cabral, Giorgio Calderone, Roberto Cirami, João Coelho, Igor Coretti, Valentina D'Odorico, Paolo Di Marcantonio, David Ehrenreich, Pedro Figueira, Matteo Genoni, Ricardo Génova Santos, Jonay I. González Hernández, Florian Kerber, Marco Landoni, Ana C. O. Leite, Jean-Louis Lizon, Gaspare Lo Curto, Antonio Manescau, Carlos J. A. P. Martins, Denis Megévand, Andrea Mehner, Giuseppina Micela, Andrea Modigliani, Manuel Monteiro, Mario J. P. F. G. Monteiro, Eric Mueller, Nelson J. Nunes, Luca Oggioni, António Oliveira, Giorgio Pariani, Luca Pasquini, Edoardo Redaelli, Marco Riva, Pedro Santos, Danuta Sosnowska, Sérgio G. Sousa, Alessandro Sozzetti, Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, Stéphane Udry, Maria-Rosa Zapatero Osorio, Filippo Zerbi
Observations of metal absorption systems in the spectra of distant quasars allow to constrain a possible variation of the fine-structure constant throughout the history of the Universe. Such a test poses utmost demands on the wavelength accuracy and previous studies were limited by systematics in the spectrograph wavelength calibration. A substantial advance in the field is therefore expected from the new ultra-stable high-resolution spectrograph Espresso, recently installed at the VLT. In preparation of the fundamental physics related part of the Espresso GTO program, we present a thorough assessment of the Espresso wavelength accuracy and identify possible systematics at each of the different steps involved in the wavelength calibration process. Most importantly, we compare the default wavelength solution, based on the combination of Thorium-Argon arc lamp spectra and a Fabry-Pérot interferometer, to the fully independent calibration obtained from a laser frequency comb. We find wavelength-dependent discrepancies of up to 24m/s. This substantially exceeds the photon noise and highlights the presence of different sources of systematics, which we characterize in detail as part of this study. Nevertheless, our study demonstrates the outstanding accuracy of Espresso with respect to previously used spectrographs and we show that constraints of a relative change of the fine-structure constant at the $10^{-6}$ level can be obtained with Espresso without being limited by wavelength calibration systematics.
Test of a 34 GHz EOM laser frequency comb at ESPRESSO
Observatoire Astronomique de l’Université de Genève（日内瓦大学天文台）；Institut für Astrophysik und Geophysik, Georg-August-Universität（哥廷根大学天体物理与地球物理研究所）；Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM)（瑞士电子与微技术中心）；European Southern Observatory (ESO)（欧洲南方天文台）；Q.ANT GmbH（Q.ANT有限公司）；Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY（德国电子同步辐射研究所）；Department of Phyiscs, Universität Hamburg UHH（汉堡大学物理系）；École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院）
In the last decade, white-light illuminated Fabry-Pérot interferometers wave been established as a widely used, relatively simple, reliable, and cost-effective way to precisely calibrate high-resolution echelle spectrographs. However, Terrien et al. (2021) recently reported a chromatic drift of the Fabry-Pérot interferometer installed at the Habitable-zone Planet Finder spectrograph. In particular, they found that the variation of the etalon effective gap size is not achromatic as usually assumed but in fact depends on wavelength. Here, we present a similar study of the Espresso Fabry-Pérot in…
Gaia benchmark stars are selected to be calibration stars for different spectroscopic surveys. Very high-quality and homogeneous spectroscopic data for these stars are therefore required. We collected ultrahigh-resolution ESPRESSO spectra for 30 of the 34 Gaia benchmark stars and made them public. We quantify the consistency of the results that are obtained with different high-, and ultrahigh-resolution spectrographs. We also comprehensively studied the effect of using different spectral reduction products of ESPRESSO on the final spectroscopic results. We used ultrahigh- and high-resolution s…
Ground-based high-resolution spectrographs are key instruments for several astrophysical domains. Unfortunately, the observed spectra are contaminated by the Earth's atmosphere. While different techniques exist to correct for telluric lines in exoplanet atmospheric studies, in radial velocity (RV) studies, telluric lines with an absorption depth of >2% are generally masked, which poses a problem for faint targets and M dwarfs as most of their RV content is present where telluric contamination is important. We propose a simple telluric model to be embedded in the ESPRESSO DRS. The goal is to pr…
Context. The temperate Earth-mass planet Proxima b is the closest exoplanet to Earth and represents what may be our best ever opportunity to search for life outside the Solar System. Aims. We aim at directly detecting Proxima b and characterizing its atmosphere by spatially resolving the planet and obtaining high-resolution reflected-light spectra. Methods. We propose to develop a coupling interface between the SPHERE high-contrast imager and the new ESPRESSO spectrograph, both installed at ESO VLT. The angular separation of 37 mas between Proxima b and its host star requires the use of visibl…
Wavelength calibration is a routine and critical part of any spectral work-flow, but many astronomers still resort to matching detected peaks and emission lines by hand. We present RASCAL (RANSAC Assisted Spectral CALibration), a python library for automated wavelength calibration of astronomical spectrographs. RASCAL implements recent state-of-the-art methods for wavelength calibration and requires minimal input from a user. In this paper we discuss the implementation of the library and apply it to real-world calibration spectra.
Design and Commissioning of an Iodine Cell for the ESPRESSO Spectrograph
National Institute of Standards and Technology（美国国家标准与技术研究院）；Imperial College London（帝国理工学院）；Carnegie Institution for Science, Earth & Planets Laboratory（卡内基科学学会地球与行星实验室）
Observations with ground-based telescopes are affected by differential atmospheric dispersion when seen at a zenith angle different from zero, a consequence of the wavelength-dependent index of refraction of the atmosphere. One of the pioneering technology in detecting exoplanets is the technique of radial velocity (RV), that can be affected by uncorrected atmospheric dispersion. The current highest precision spectrographs are expected to deliver a precision of 10 cm/s (e.g., ESPRESSO). To minimize the atmospheric dispersion effect, an Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector (ADC) can be employed. AD…
We present a new calibration for the second-order light contamination in the near-infrared grism spectroscopy with the Infrared Camera aboard AKARI, specifically for the post-cryogenic phase of the satellite (Phase 3). Following our previous work on the cryogenic phase (Phases 1 and 2), the wavelength and spectral response calibrations were revised. Unlike Phases 1 and 2, during Phase 3, the temperature of the instrument was not stable and gradually increased from 40 to 47 K. To assess the effect of the temperature increase, we divided Phase 3 into three sub-phases and performed the calibratio…
We perform revised spectral calibrations for the AKARI near-infrared grism to quantitatively correct for the effect of the wavelength-dependent refractive index. The near-infrared grism covering the wavelength range of 2.5--5.0 micron with a spectral resolving power of 120 at 3.6 micron, is found to be contaminated by second-order light at wavelengths longer than 4.9 micron which is especially serious for red objects. First, we present the wavelength calibration considering the refractive index of the grism as a function of the wavelength for the first time. We find that the previous solution …
We attempt to measure possible miscalibration of the wavelength scale of the VLT-UVES spectrograph. We take spectra of QSO HE0515-4414 through the UVES iodine cell which contains thousands of well-calibrated iodine lines and compare these lines to the wavelength scale from the standard thorium-argon pipeline calibration. Analyzing three exposures of this z = 1.71 QSO, we find two distinct types of calibration shifts needed to correct the Th/Ar wavelength scale. First, there is an overall average velocity shift of between 100 m/s and 500 m/s depending upon the exposure. Second, within a given e…
Accurate wavelength calibration is critical for qualitative and quantitative spectroscopic measurements. Many spectrometers for planetary exploration are equipped with onboard calibration sources. However, such calibration sources are not always available because planetary lander missions often have strong limitations in size and mass. In this study, we propose and validate a wavelength calibration method using solar Fraunhofer lines observed in reflective spectra. As a result, for a visible Raman spectrometer, the accuracy is better than 0.6 cm-1 in 0-4000 cm-1 range, and the magnesium abunda…
ESPRESSO is the new high-resolution spectrograph of ESO's Very-Large Telescope (VLT). It was designed for ultra-high radial-velocity precision and extreme spectral fidelity with the aim of performing exoplanet research and fundamental astrophysical experiments with unprecedented precision and accuracy. It is able to observe with any of the four Unit Telescopes (UT) of the VLT at a spectral resolving power of 140,000 or 190,000 over the 378.2 to 788.7 nm wavelength range, or with all UTs together, turning the VLT into a 16-m diameter equivalent telescope in terms of collecting area, while still…
We present the wavelength calibration of the Hamilton echelle spectrograph (the Lick observatory). The main problem of the calibration arises from the fact that thorium lines are absent in the spectrum of "ThAr" hollow-cathode lamp now under the operation. On the other hand, numerous unknown strong lines are present in the spectrum. These lines was identified with titanium. We estimate the temperature of the lamp gas which permits us to calculate the intensities of the lines, and to select a large number of relevant Ti I and Ti II lines. The titanium line list for the Lick hallow-cathode lamp …
The study of Earth-mass extrasolar planets via the radial-velocity technique and the measurement of the potential cosmological variability of fundamental constants call for very-high-precision spectroscopy at the level of $\updeltaλ/λ<10^{-9}$. Wavelength accuracy is obtained by providing two fundamental ingredients: 1) an absolute and information-rich wavelength source and 2) the ability of the spectrograph and its data reduction of transferring the reference scale (wavelengths) to a measurement scale (detector pixels) in a repeatable manner. The goal of this work is to improve the wavelength…
In this paper we describe a new approach for mm-VLBI calibration that provides bona-fide astrometric alignment of the mm-wavelength images from a single source, for the measurement of frequency dependent effects, such as `core-shifts' near the black hole of AGN jets. We achieve our astrometric alignment by solving firstly for the ionospheric (dispersive) contributions using wide-band cm-wavelength observations. Secondly we solve for the tropospheric (non-dispersive) contributions by using fast frequency-switching at the target mm-wavelengths. These solutions can be scaled and transferred from …
We present improvements to the wavelength calibration for the lenslet-based Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS), that serves as the science instrument for the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI). The GPI IFS features a 2.7" $\times$ 2.7" field of view and a 190 $\times$ 190 lenslet array (14.1 mas/lenslet) with spectral resolving power ranging from R $\sim$ 35 to 78. A unique wavelength solution is determined for each lenslet characterized by a two-dimensional position, an n-dimensional polynomial describing the spectral dispersion, and the rotation of the spectrum with respect to the detector axis. We i…
OSIRIS (Optical System for Imaging and low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy) is the first light instrument of the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). It provides a flexible and competitive tunable filter (TF). Since it is based on a Fabry-Perot interferometer working in collimated beam, the TF transmission wavelength depends on the position of the target with respect to the optical axis. This effect is non-negligible and must be accounted for in the data reduction. Our paper establishes a wavelength calibration for OSIRIS TF with the accuracy required for spectrophotometric measurements using th…
We present the wavelength calibration for the lenslet-based Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) that serves as the science instrument for the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI). The GPI IFS features a 2.7" x 2.7" field of view and a 190 x 190 lenslet array (14.3 mas/lenslet) operating in $Y$, $J$, $H$, and $K$ bands with spectral resolving power ranging from $R$ $\sim$ 35 to 78. Due to variations across the field of view, a unique wavelength solution is determined for each lenslet characterized by a two-dimensional position, the spectral dispersion, and the rotation of the spectrum with respect to the d…
The NIRSpec instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a highly versatile near-infrared spectrograph that can be operated in various observing modes, slit apertures, and spectral resolutions. Obtaining dedicated calibration data for all possible combinations of aperture and disperser is an intractable task. We have therefore developed a procedure to derive a highly realistic model of the instrument's optical geometry across the entire field of view, using calibration data acquired through only a subset of NIRSpec apertures, which nevertheless allows the light paths within the spec…
We present solution of the problem of wavelength calibration for Hamilton Echelle spectrograph using hollow cathode lamp, which was operated at Lick Observatory Shane telescope before June 9, 2011. The spectrum of the lamp claimed to be thorium-argon, contains, in addition to the lines of thorium and argon, a number of the unrecognized lines identified by us with tantalum. Using atomic data for measured lines of tantalum and thorium, we estimated the temperature of the gas in the lamp as T=3120+/-60 K. From the atomic line database VALD3 we selected all lines of TaI and TaII which can be seen …
We describe techniques concerning wavelength calibration and sky subtraction to maximise the scientific utility of data from tunable filter instruments. While we specifically address data from the Optical System for Imaging and low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy instrument (OSIRIS) on the 10.4~m Gran Telescopio Canarias telescope, our discussion is generalisable to data from other tunable filter instruments. A key aspect of our methodology is a coordinate transformation to polar coordinates, which simplifies matters when the tunable filter data is circularly symmetric around the optical ce…
In order to meet the theoretically achievable imaging performance, calibration of modern radio interferometers is a mandatory challenge, especially at low frequencies. In this perspective, we propose a novel parallel iterative multi-wavelength calibration algorithm. The proposed algorithm estimates the apparent directions of the calibration sources, the directional and undirectional complex gains of the array elements and their noise powers, with a reasonable computational complexity. Furthermore, the algorithm takes into account the specific variation of the aforementioned parameter values ac…
Excalibur is a non-parametric, hierarchical framework for precision wavelength-calibration of spectrographs. It is designed with the needs of extreme-precision radial velocity (EPRV) in mind, which require that instruments be calibrated or stabilized to better than $10^{-4}$ pixels. Instruments vary along only a few dominant degrees of freedom, especially EPRV instruments that feature highly stabilized optical systems and detectors. Excalibur takes advantage of this property by using all calibration data to construct a low-dimensional representation of all accessible calibration states for an …
We present the wavelength and spectral resolution characterisation of the Integral Field Unit (IFU) Medium Resolution Spectrometer for the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), to fly onboard the James Webb Space Telescope in 2014. We use data collected using the Verification Model of the instrument and develop an empirical method to calibrate properties such as wavelength range and resolving power in a portion of the spectrometer's full spectral range (5-28 microns). We test our results against optical models to verify the system requirements and combine them with a study of the fringing pattern in…
The Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST) spectroscopic survey aims to deliver high-quality low-resolution ($R > 200$) slitless spectra for hundreds of millions of targets down to a limiting magnitude of about 21 mag, distributed within a large survey area (17500 deg$^2$) and covering a wide wavelength range (255-1000 nm by 3 bands GU, GV, and GI). As slitless spectroscopy precludes the usage of wavelength calibration lamps, wavelength calibration is one of the most challenging issues in the reduction of slitless spectra, yet it plays a key role in measuring precise radial velocities of stars…
Time domain astronomy and the increasing number of exoplanet candidates call for reliable, robust, and automatic wavelength calibration. We present an algorithm for wavelength calibrating échelle spectrographs that uses order-by-order extracted spectra and a list of laboratory wavelengths. Our approach is fully automatic and does not need the pixel locations of certain spectral features with which to anchor the wavelength solution, nor the true order number of each diffraction order. We use spectral features that are duplicated in adjacent orders to establish the scale-invariant component of t…
We present here the precise wavelength calibration of a high-resolution spectrum using Uranium (U) lines in the wavelength range of 3809 - 6833 Å for precision radial velocity measurements for exoplanet detection or related astrophysical sciences. We identify 1540 well-resolved U lines from a high-resolution (R=67,000) spectrum of the uranium-argon hollow cathode lamp (UAr HCL) using PARAS spectrograph in the aforesaid wavelength range. We calculate the neutral and first allowed transitions (Ritz wavelength) of U from its known energy levels and compare them with our observed central wavelengt…
SPIRou is a near-infrared (nIR) spectropolarimeter at the CFHT, covering the YJHK nIR spectral bands ($980-2350\,\mathrm{nm}$). We describe the development and current status of the SPIRou wavelength calibration in order to obtain precise radial velocities (RVs) in the nIR. We make use of a UNe hollow-cathode lamp and a Fabry-Pérot étalon to calibrate the pixel-wavelength correspondence for SPIRou. Different methods are developed for identifying the hollow-cathode lines, for calibrating the wavelength dependence of the Fabry-Pérot cavity width, and for combining the two calibrators. The hollow…
We describe the POLAMI program for the monitoring of all four Stokes parameters of a sample of bright radio-loud active galactic nuclei with the IRAM 30m telescope at 3.5 and 1.3mm. The program started in October 2006 and accumulated, until August 2014, 2300 observations at 3.5mm, achieving a median time sampling interval of 22 days for the sample of 37 sources. This first paper explains the source selection, mostly blazars, the observing strategy and data calibration, and gives the details of the instrumental polarisation corrections. The sensitivity (1sigma) reached at 3.5mm is 0.5% (linear …
The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on-board JWST will provide imaging, coronagraphy, low-resolution spectroscopy and medium-resolution spectroscopy at unprecedented sensitivity levels in the mid-infrared wavelength range. The Medium-Resolution Spectrometer (MRS) of MIRI is an integral field spectrograph that provides diffraction-limited spectroscopy between 4.9 and 28.3 um, within a FOV varying from 13 to 56" square. From ground testing, we calculate the physical parameters essential to general observers and calibrating the wavelength solution and resolving power of the MRS is critical for max…
Over the past decades hollow-cathode lamps have been calibration standards for spectroscopic measurements. Advancing to cm/s radial velocity precisions with the next generation of instruments requires more suitable calibration sources with more lines and less dynamic range problems. Fabry-Perot interferometers provide a regular and dense grid of lines and homogeneous amplitudes making them good candidates for next generation calibrators. We investigate the usefulness of Fabry-Perot etalons in wavelength calibration, present an algorithm to incorporate the etalon spectrum in the wavelength solu…
(abridged) Even if the HARPS spectrograph has been operational for more than 15 years and it provides among the most precise Doppler measurements, improvements are still possible. One known problem, for instance, is the non-fully regular block-stitching of the CCDs, which introduces, in some cases, one-year period parasitic signals in the measured radial velocity. The aim is to improve the wavelength calibration of HARPS to push further its planet-detection capabilities. The properties of the CCD stitching-induced pixel-size anomalies are determined with LED flat-field frames, and then a physi…
Precise wavelength calibration is a critical issue for high-resolution spectroscopic observations. The ideal calibration source should be able to provide a very stable and dense grid of evenly distributed spectral lines of constant intensity. A new method which satisfies all mentioned conditions has been developed by our group. The approach is to actively measure the exact position of a single spectral line of a Fabry-Perot etalon with very high precision with a wavelength-tuneable laser and compare it to an extremely stable wavelength standard. The ideal choice of standard is the D2 absorptio…
The multi-object spectrograph (MOS) has been the benchmark for the current generation of astronomical spectrographs, valued for its ability to acquire the spectra of hundreds of objects simultaneously. In the last two decades, the digital micromirror device (DMD) has shown potential in becoming the central component of the MOS, being used as a programmable slit array. We have designed a seeing-limited DMD-based MOS covering a spectral range of 0.4 to 0.7 $μ$m, with a field of view (FOV) of $10.5^\prime \times 13.98^\prime$ and a spectral resolution of $R\sim1000$. This DMD-MOS employs all-sphe…
SARAS is a correlation spectrometer connected to a frequency independent antenna that is purpose-designed for precision measurements of the radio background at long wavelengths. The design, calibration and observing strategies admit solutions for the internal additive contributions to the radiometer response, and hence a separation of these contaminants from the antenna temperature. We present here a wideband measurement of the radio sky spectrum by SARAS that provides an accurate measurement of the absolute brightness and spectral index between 110 and 175 MHz. Accuracy in the measurement of …
The wavelength calibration of spectrographs is an essential but challenging task in many disciplines. Calibration is traditionally accomplished by imaging the spectrum of a light source containing features that are known to appear at certain wavelengths and mapping them to their location on the sensor. This is typically required in conjunction with each scientific observation to account for mechanical and optical variations of the instrument over time, which may span years for certain projects. The method presented here investigates the usage of color itself instead of spectral features to cal…
A discharge of nitrogen gas, as created in a microwave-induced plasma, exhibits a very dense molecular emission line spectrum. Emission spectra of this kind could serve as wavelength calibrators for high-resolution astrophysical spectrographs in the near-infrared, where only very few calibration sources are currently available. The compilation of a spectral line list and the characterization of line intensities and line density belong to the initial steps when investigating the feasibility of potential wavelength calibration sources. Although the molecular nitrogen spectrum was extensively stu…
A Formalism for Calibrating the Instrumental Polarization of Radio Interferometric Arrays at Meter Wavelengths using Unpolarized Sky: A Demonstration using the MWA Observations
Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA), one of three core programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV (SDSS-IV), is an integral-field spectroscopic (IFS) survey of roughly 10,000 nearby galaxies. It employs dithered observations using 17 hexagonal bundles of 2 arcsec fibers to obtain resolved spectroscopy over a wide wavelength range of 3,600-10,300A. To map the internal variations within each galaxy, we need to perform accurate {\it spectral surface photometry}, which is to calibrate the specific intensity at every spatial location sampled by each individual aperture elem…
The method of solar magnetic field calibration for the filter-based magnetograph is normally the linear calibration method under weak-field approximation that cannot generate the strong magnetic field region well due to the magnetic saturation effect. We try to provide a new method to carry out the nonlinear magnetic calibration with the help of neural networks to obtain more accurate magnetic fields. We employed the data from Hinode/SP to construct a training, validation and test dataset. The narrow-band Stokes I, Q, U, and V maps at one wavelength point were selected from all the 112 wavelen…
A General Framework for Radial Velocity Calibration in Low-Resolution Spectroscopic Surveys: Correcting Wavelength-Dependent and Global Systematics with Application to LAMOST DR9
Institute for Frontiers in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学天文与前沿科学研究院）；School of Physics and Astronomy, Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学物理与天文学院）；Yunnan University（云南大学）
The Keck telescope's HIRES spectrograph has previously provided evidence for a smaller fine-structure constant, alpha, compared to the current laboratory value, in a sample of 143 quasar absorption systems: da/a=(-0.57+/-0.11)x10^{-5}. This was based on a variety of metal-ion transitions which, if alpha varies, experience different relative velocity shifts. This result is yet to be robustly contradicted, or confirmed, by measurements on other telescopes and spectrographs; it remains crucial to do so. It is also important to consider new possible instrumental systematic effects which may explai…
The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) started median-resolution spectroscopic (MRS, R$\sim$7500) survey since October 2018. The main scientific goals of MRS, including binary stars, pulsators, and other variable stars are launched with a time-domain spectroscopic survey. However, the systematic errors, including the bias induced from wavelength calibration and the systematic difference between different spectrographs have to be carefully considered during radial velocity measurement. In this work, we provide a technique to correct the systematics in the wavelen…
Accurate wavelength calibration is an important factor for any measurement with high resolution spectrographs. Stellar spectrum comprises of discrete absorption or emission lines whose position is precisely determined by calibrating the spectrograph using known reference lines generated from laboratory sources. For the spectrograph to measure small variations in Doppler shift, the wavelength calibration must be sufficiently stable during observation time. Instrument instability, mainly due to environmental factors like temperature and pressure variations, limitations of traditional calibration…
We introduce a data reduction package written in Interactive Data Language (IDL) for the Magellan Echellete Spectrograph (MAGE). MAGE is a medium-resolution (R ~4100), cross-dispersed, optical spectrograph, with coverage from ~3000-10000 Angstroms. The MAGE Spectral Extractor (MASE) incorporates the entire image reduction and calibration process, including bias subtraction, flat fielding, wavelength calibration, sky subtraction, object extraction and flux calibration of point sources. We include examples of the user interface and reduced spectra. We show that the wavelength calibration is suff…
One of the essential prerequisites for detection of Earth-like extra-solar planets or direct measurements of the cosmological expansion is the accurate and precise wavelength calibration of astronomical spectrometers. It has already been realized that the large number of exactly known optical frequencies provided by laser frequency combs ('astrocombs') can significantly surpass conventionally used hollow-cathode lamps as calibration light sources. A remaining challenge, however, is generation of frequency combs with lines resolvable by astronomical spectrometers. Here we demonstrate an astroco…
