HARMONI is an integral field spectrograph working at visible and near-infrared wavelengths, over a range of spatial scales from ground layer corrected to fully diffraction-limited. The instrument has been chosen to be part of the first-light complement at the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). This paper describes the engineering technology development being undertaken at the UKATC and Oxford to support E-ELT HARMONI instrument in its pre-phase-B stage. This includes the description of technology demonstrators for a tracking optical de-rotator to be located within the instrument vacuum vessel, a cryogenic shutter and a compact thermally compensating lens mount system. In addition the material testing facilities available at the UKATC are described which will enable the measurement of material and bolted joint thermal conductivities to 4K and friction/wear properties of material combinations to 20K. This work is undertaken to improve the instrument performance and reduce technical, cost and schedule risk.

Date Published: 13 September 2012
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 8450, Modern Technologies in Space- and Ground-based Telescopes and Instrumentation II, 84504H (13 September 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.925307

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8450:
Modern Technologies in Space- and Ground-based Telescopes and Instrumentation II
Ramón Navarro; Colin R. Cunningham; Eric Prieto, Editor(s)