The NIRPS instrument, a cryogenic adaptive-optics equipped high-resolution (R=80,000) spectrograph newly installed on La Silla 3.6-m telescope has successfully entered operation at the start of the new period, on April 1st. The instrument is equipped with a stabilized Fabry-Perot calibration source ensuring high radial velocity precision, with a goal of reaching 1m/s. NIRPS targets M-dwarfs since their so-called habitable zones are closer than for stars like our Sun, and so the orbital periods of planets are shorter than the orbital period of Earth, on the order of weeks instead of a year.
NIRPS Successfully Starts Operations
Published: 04 Apr 2023
The NIRPS consortium coordinates the Guaranteed Time Observations as well as community programs willing to take part. The NIRPS instrument comes with a full CPL-based ESO pipeline made available to the community. Both raw and data products including cross-correlation functions are created automatically at the telescope and archived in Garching in real time (10-15 min). These files are immediately available to the PIs of the programs. NIRPS model aims at remote observing with observers using the fully tested eavesdropping mode. Finally, NIRPS has been designed to operate simultaneously with HARPS.
The NIRPS consortium is composed of Université de Montréal, Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic, Université de Genève, Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Université de Grenoble – Alpes, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Université Laval and Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics unit of the National Research Council of Canada.