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