ERIS, the Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph, is a 1-5 µm instrument for the Cassegrain focus of UT4 at the VLT. It will benefit from the Adaptive Optics Facility (AOF), including the deformable secondary mirror (DSM).
Future VLT Instruments: ERIS
Published: 28 Jun 2013
ERIS consists of three main instrumental modules:
an AO module, using the AOF DSM and one AOF laser, providing natural and laser guide star adaptive optics correction;
diffraction limited imaging, sparse aperture masking and pupil plane coronagraphy capabilities from 1-5 µm with a 2k x 2k NIR detector;
a refurbished version of the SPIFFI spectrograph, the 1-2.5 µm integral field unit currently in SINFONI, slightly modified for ERIS.
ERIS is in the preliminary design phase and is due for installation on the VLT in 2017; an announcement has been issued. More details about ERIS can be found here.
A full listing of the instrumentation development and upgrade projects is available here.