Instrument Overview
The MMT can be configured with one of three secondary mirrors, our f/9 or f/5 top/tilt secondaries or our f/15 deformable mirror for adaptive corrections with either natural guide stars or our laser system. The three interchangeable secondary mirrors support four Cassegrain optical configurations: f/9 with a 13′ FOV designed to make use of the pre-conversion facility instrumentation, f/5 with a corrected 1˚ FOV for wide-field spectroscopy, f/5 with a corrected 0.5˚ FOV for imaging and the fully adaptive f/15 with a maximum FOV of 5′ (though this is not fully exploited yet). The f/5 spectroscopic mode incorporates atmospheric dispersion compensation (ADC) prisms to correct for atmospheric dispersion between 1 and 2 airmass.
We have an expansive set of world class instruments for use – each one utilizing the qualities of one of our three secondary mirrors. Below is a summary table of each instrument’s main capabilities. You will find a more in-depth description on each individual instrument page. All of our instruments, except for the Red & Blue Channel spectrographs, are PI instruments so we have listed the links to documentation kept up to date by the PIs. If you need further information regarding any instruments please contact a staff scientist.
| Secondary | Name | Brief Description | Spectral Range | Resolving power/ pixel scale | FOV | Available? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| f/9 | ||||||
| Blue Channel | Optical single-slit spectrograph | 3000 – 9000Å | R = 770 – 3900 & 11200 | Yes | ||
| Red Channel | Optical single-slit spectrograph | 4000Å – 1.02um | R = 240 – 4050 | No | ||
| SPOL | Imaging spectropolarimeter | 3800 – 9000Å | R = 330 – 1025 / 0.19″/pix | 19″ | Yes | |
| f/5 | ||||||
| Binospec | Optical multi-object spectrograph & imager | 3900Å – 1um | 1300 – 5000 / 0.22″/pix | 8′ x 15′ | Yes | |
| Hectochelle | Optical fiber-fed multi-object echelle spectrograph | 3800 – 9200Å | R = 32,000 – 40,000 | 1 deg | Yes | |
| Hectospec | Optical fiber-fed multi-object spectrograph | 3650 – 9200Å | R = 1000 – 2500 | 1 deg | Yes | |
| MAESTRO | Single-slit echelle spectrograph | 3185 – 9850Å | R = 28,000 – 93,000 | No | ||
| Megacam | Wide-field optical imager | 3200 – 8300Å | 0.08″/pix | 24′ x 24′ | No | |
| MMIRS | IR multi-object spectrograph & imager | 0.9 – 2.5um | R = 1200 – 3000 / 0.2″/pix | 7′ x 7′ | Yes | |
| SWIRC | Wide-field IR imager | 0.84 – 1.8um | 0.15″/pix | 5.12′ x 5.12′ | No | |
| f/15 | ||||||
| ARIES | IR imager & single slit echelle spectrograph | 1 – 5um | R = 1500 – 50,000 / 0.019 – 0.1″/pix | 20″ – 104.4″ | Temporarily unavailable | |
| CLIO | Thermal IR camera | 1.5 – 3um | 0.027 – 0.048″/pix | 8.7″ x 7″ or 15″ x 12″ | No | |
| MIRAC-BLINC | Mid-IR camera & nulling interferometer | 8 – 25um | 0.09″/pix | 11.5″ | No | |
| PISCES | Wide-field IR imager | 1 – 2.5um | 0.026″/pix or 0.11″/pix | 26.4″ or 1.9′ | Yes | |
| MMT-Pol | IR imaging polarimeter | 1 – 4um | 0.043 “/pix | 22.5″ | Temporarily unavailable | |