BlueMUSE is an optical seeing-limited, blue-optimised, medium spectral resolution, panoramic integral-field-spectrograph, to be installed at the VLT. With a wide wavelength coverage (350 - 580 nm), an average spectral resolution of R=4000 and a field-of-view of 1arcmin², BlueMUSE will offer new and unique science opportunities in many fields of astrophysics. ESO has approved the Phase A (conceptual design) of the project led by PI Johan Richard from the Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon (France), the laboratory leading the consortium composed of a total of 9 institutes world-wide. The expected first-light for the BlueMUSE instrument is 2031.
VLT BlueMUSE Phase A Kicked-off
Published: 24 Jun 2024
The science goals enabled with this novel instrument include surveying large sample of massive stars in our galaxy and the Local Group, studying ionised nebulae, starburst and low surface-brightness galaxies. At high redshift, BlueMUSE will allow astronomers to detect unambiguously for the first time the intergalactic medium in emission, as well as to study the evolution of the circumgalactic medium properties near the peak of the Cosmic Star formation history.
The institutes involved in the BlueMUSE consortium are the Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, CNRS, France; Australian Astronomical Optics, Macquarie University, Australia; CEA irfu, CNRS, Université de Paris-Saclay, France; Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, Germany; Center for Advanced Instrumentation at Durham University, department of Physics, United Kingdom; Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Laboratory of Astrophysics (LASTRO), Observatory of Sauverny, Versoix, Switzerland; Instituto de Astrofisica e Ciencias do Espaco, Portugal; Stockholm University - Department of Astronomy, Sweden; and Université de Genève, département d’astronomie, Switzerland.