EMIR at the GTC: results on the first commissioning at the telescope

Abstract

We report the results on the EMIR1 (Espectrografo Multiobjeto Infra-Rojo) performances after the commissioning period of the instrument at the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). EMIR is one of the first common user instruments for the GTC, the 10 meter telescope operating at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain). EMIR is being built by a Consortium of Spanish and French institutes led by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC). EMIR is primarily designed to be operated as a MOS in the K band, but offers a wide range of observing modes, including imaging and spectroscopy, both long slit and multiobject, in the wavelength range 0.9 to 2.5 mu m. The development and fabrication of EMIR is funded by GRANTECAN and the Plan Nacional de Astronomia y Astrofisica (National Plan for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Spain). After an extensive and intensive period of system verification at the IAC, EMIR was shipped to the GTC on May 2016 for its integration at the Nasmyth platform. Once in the observatory, several tests were conducted to ensure the functionality of EMIR at the telescope, in particular that of the ECS (EMIR Control System) which has to be fully embedded into the GCS (GTC Control System) so as to become an integral part of it. During the commissioning, the main capabilities of EMIR and its combined operation with the GTC are tested and the ECS are modified to its final form. This contribution reports on the details of the EMIR operation at the GTC obtained so far, on the first commissioning period.