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51-616: CFHT is currently considering a refurbishment to the facility in the 2020s. The facility would be reconstructed with a new 11-m telescope to produce the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer , retaining the same base building and infrastructure. First light is expected no earlier than 2029. The corporation is bound by a tripartite agreement between the University of Hawaii at Manoa , in the United States ,

102-460: A 1,100 deg field and a 120 mm lens diameter. Each camera is equipped with its own CCD staring array , consisting of four CCDs of 4510 x 4510 pixels . The 24 "normal cameras" will be arranged in four groups of six cameras with their lines of sight offset by a 9.2° angle from the +ZPLM axis. This particular configuration allows surveying an instantaneous field of view of about 2,250 deg per pointing. The space observatory will rotate around

153-405: A 3.6 meter aperture telescope, with one that provides a suitable enclosure aperture while still being of a mass that the current building can support. A calotte style enclosure has been chosen as one that meets performance requirements, including good control of ventilation, while staying within the allowed mass and fiscal budgets. The instrumentation package at the circular optical field of view

204-504: A breakthrough in extragalactic astronomy by linking the formation and evolution of galaxies to the surrounding large-scale structure , across the full range of relevant spatial scales (from kiloparsecs to megaparsecs ). MSE will perform spectroscopic follow-up of time-variable events discovered by LSST , SKA and other all-sky transient surveys. With its large multiplex advantage and good sky overlap with other surveys, MSE can provide large-aperture followup of faint transient events using

255-522: A conceptual design in early 2018. The project schedule anticipates receiving permission in 2021 to proceed to final design and construction phases, leading to a start of science commissioning in 2029. The MSE project initially took shape through a feasibility study led by the National Research Council of Canada, which showed the strength of the science case for a large aperture dedicated multiobject spectroscopic facility, as well as

306-467: A few fibres while simultaneously continuing uninterrupted observation of main survey programs with the remainder of the installed fibre set. MSE will undertake an extragalactic time domain program to measure directly the accretion rates and masses of a large sample of supermassive black holes through reverberation mapping . This information is essential for understanding accretion physics and tracing black hole growth over cosmic time. Reverberation mapping

357-525: A few simultaneous surveys as well as calibration targets and targets of opportunity, and with spectrographs and indeed arms of spectrographs configured differently in each observing matrix. Objects are selected to be included in any observing matrix on the bases of science priority, time criticality, observing conditions, source brightness, sky brightness, calibration needs, and fibre yield (the fraction of fibre tips that can be placed on useful science objects). Software tools are being defined to automate steps in

408-515: A fully consistent portrait of dark matter halos across the mass function . MSE will measure how galaxies evolve and grow relative to the dark matter structure in which they are embedded.  This is done through mapping the distribution of stellar populations and supermassive black holes to the dark matter haloes and filamentary structures that dominate the mass density of the Universe, and doing so over all mass and spatial scales. MSE will provide

459-647: A key design role in earlier phases of the project. The project is governed by a Management Group of members from each of the participants. The project design work is funded through cash managed by the Management Group and disbursed by CFHT Corp, as well as through in-kind work by most of the participants. Lead documents in the management of the Maunakea lands are the Mauna Kea Science Reserve Master Plan (June 2000) and

510-464: A liquid state. It is the third medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme and is named after the influential Greek philosopher Plato . A secondary objective of the mission is to study stellar oscillations or seismic activity in stars to measure stellar masses and evolution and enable the precise characterization of the planet host star, including its age. PLATO was first proposed in 2007 to

561-428: A more accurate representation of the energy distribution that the telescope sees during observation, than is possible with lamp calibration measurements alone. Scheduling MSE in an optimal way is a complex multi-faceted problem. Each "observing matrix" (one observation made at a single telescope pointing and suite of associated fibre positions) targets spectra from more than 4300 fibres pointing at objects selected from

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612-504: A prime focus telescope using a segmented primary mirror of 60 1.44m segments, delivering a circumscribed 11.25 meter aperture, and with a five element widefield corrector providing 1.5 square degrees of corrected field of view at the prime focus optical focal surface of the telescope. Compensation for atmospheric dispersion is an integral function of the widefield corrector optics. MSE's 11.25 meter aperture diameter necessitates replacing Canada-France-Hawai‘i Telescope's enclosure, designed for

663-483: A yearly calendar. Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer The Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is a collaborative project by a new and enlarged partnership to revitalize the Canada-France-Hawai‘i Telescope (CFHT) observatory through replacing the existing 1970-vintage optical telescope with a modern segmented-mirror telescope and dedicated science instrumentation, while substantially re-using

714-485: Is a building that looks substantially identical to the current CFHT summit building. The building internal structure will be improved to provide better performance during seismic events, and to accommodate the new enclosure and larger telescope. Other changes involve relocating equipment and labs to better exhaust heat away from the observing environment, and providing space for segmented mirror routine cleaning and coating operations. While MSE will be operated remotely from

765-667: Is currently in the process of seeking a renewal of the General Lease. Before MSE will enter a construction phase, the project must have both the project approved by DLNR, as well as the ability to operate beyond 2033 under a renewed General Lease for the Maunakea Science Reserve. The science objectives for MSE were developed by a broadly based international science team, and are described in MSE's Detailed Science Case. The Detailed Science Case develops and justifies

816-411: Is dominated by a hexagonal array of more than 4300 robotic fibre positioners, each of which samples the light at the focal surface with the tip of an optical fibre. Located in the outer chords between the hexagonal array of fibre positioners and the circular field of view are three imaging cameras used for telescope pointing acquisition, guidance, and focus measurement. A mechanical de-rotator stage keeps

867-721: Is funded by the Italian Space Agency , the Swiss Space Office and the Swedish National Space Board . The PMC Science Management (PSM), composed of more than 500 experts, is coordinated by Prof. Don Pollacco of the University of Warwick and provides expertise for: The objective is the detection of terrestrial exoplanets up to the habitable zone of solar-type stars and the characterization of their bulk properties needed to determine their habitability . To achieve this objective,

918-633: Is offered to scientists from all the seven countries in the partnership. Astronomers from the European Union can also submit proposals through the Optical Infrared Coordination Network for Astronomy (OPTICON) access program. CFHT currently operates five instruments: CFHT, in collaboration with Coelum Astronomia , maintains a public-outreach website called "Hawaiian Starlight" which offers extremely high-quality versions of CFHT images in various formats including

969-599: Is responsible for the payload and major contributions to the science operations is led by Prof. Heike Rauer at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research. The design of the Telescope Optical Units is made by an international team from Italy, Switzerland and Sweden and coordinated by Roberto Ragazzoni at INAF ( Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica ) Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova. The Telescope Optical Unit development

1020-632: Is subject to the approval processes that is defined in these documents and managed by Hawai‘i's Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR). CFHT occupies the a site on Maunakea under a sublease to General Lease S-4191 between the State of Hawai‘i and the University of Hawai‘i (UH). The General Lease confers upon UH the rights and obligations to operate in and to manage the Mauna Kea Science Reserve until 31 December 2033. The UH

1071-485: Is the duration between each 90-degree rotation of the spacecraft. For the first quarter of observations, six months are required for data validation and pipeline updates. For the next quarters, three months will be needed. A small number of stars (no more than 2,000 stars out of 250,000) will have proprietary status, meaning the data will only be accessible to the PLATO Mission Consortium members for

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1122-420: Is the only distance-independent method of measuring black hole masses applicable at cosmological distances. MSE will greatly extend the few 10s of relatively low-luminosity AGN that currently have measurements of their black hole masses based on this technique. Complementing its science objectives MSE will enhance education, particularly STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics] education, within

1173-730: The European Space Agency (ESA) by a team of scientists in response to the call for ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 programme. The assessment phase was completed during 2009, and in May 2010 it entered the Definition Phase. Following a call for missions in July 2010, ESA selected in February 2011 four candidates for a medium-class mission (M3 mission) for a launch opportunity in 2024. PLATO was announced on 19 February 2014 as

1224-458: The European Space Agency for launch in 2026. The mission goals are to search for planetary transits across up to one million stars, and to discover and characterize rocky extrasolar planets around yellow dwarf stars (like the Sun ), subgiant stars, and red dwarf stars. The emphasis of the mission is on Earth-like planets in the habitable zone around Sun-like stars where water can exist in

1275-1250: The National Research Council (NRC) in Canada and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France . CFHT also has partnerships with the National Astronomical Observatory of China (NAOC), the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) in Taiwan , the National Laboratory of Astrophysics (LNA) in Brazil and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) in Korea . The contributions from these associate partners help fund CFHT's future instrumentation. Currently, CFHT observing time

1326-526: The Solar Neighbourhood . MSE will focus on understanding the outer components of the Galaxy: the halo, thick disk and outer disk - which are inaccessible to 4 metre class telescopes - largely through the use of its unique capability for chemical tagging experiments. Chemistry has the potential to be used in addition to, or instead of, phase space to reveal the stellar associations that represent

1377-594: The TESS NASA mission, making it sensitive to longer-period planets. The PLATO payload is based on a multi-telescope approach, involving 26 cameras in total: 24 "normal" cameras organized in 4 groups, and 2 "fast" cameras for bright stars. The 24 "normal" cameras work at a readout cadence of 25 seconds and monitor stars fainter than apparent magnitude 8. The two "fast" cameras work at a cadence of 2.5 seconds to observe stars between magnitude 4 to 8. The cameras are refracting telescopes using six lenses; each camera has

1428-652: The Mauna Kea Comprehensive Management Plan (2009 and 2010). The Master Plan explicitly recognizes CFHT as one of the summit sites that will be redeveloped, while the Comprehensive Management Plan prescribes the development and approval process.  Although planned changes for MSE are of smaller impact than those categorized as “redevelopment” in the Master Plan and the state's Administrative Rules, MSE

1479-633: The Science Programme, which means that the mission can move from a blueprint into construction. Over the coming months, industry was asked to make bids to supply the spacecraft platform. PLATO is an acronym, but also the name of a philosopher in Classical Greece ; Plato (428–348 BC ) was looking for a physical law accounting for the orbit of planets (errant stars) and able to satisfy the philosopher's needs for "uniformity" and "regularity". The PLATO Mission Consortium (PMC) that

1530-462: The Waimea headquarters building for all nighttime operations, the summit building will continue to provide facilities for telescope and enclosure control during daytime engineering and maintenance work, as well as meeting workplace comfort and emergency staff safe haven needs. PLATO (spacecraft) PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars ( PLATO ) is a space telescope under development by

1581-412: The basis for extending development projects into other STEM fields of study. The MSE telescope will use an altitude-azimuth telescope mount supporting a segmented primary mirror with an effective aperture diameter of 10 meters. The mount concept is executed as a yoke-type structure and open space-frame telescope tube providing very good mechanical performance. The telescope is optically designed to be

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1632-567: The concrete pier beneath the telescope. This bank of spectrometers measures spectra of light delivered by 1000 or more fibres, each dispersed in three spectral windows distributed over the visible light range of the instrument (360 nm to 900 nm). The low/moderate resolution spectrometers are located on the telescope, on outrigger platforms on the azimuth structure. This bank of spectrometers measures spectra of light delivered by 3200 or more fibres, each dispersed in four spectral windows. The windows provide continuous wavelength coverage over

1683-407: The existing CFHT facility, and predominantly is a replacement of the telescope, dome and instrumentation within the current building and re-using the current foundations without alterations. Some re-arrangement of equipment and space within the current building is necessary to meet the needs of MSE as well as those of building regulatory changes since the original construction, but the design objective

1734-431: The existing Maunakea summit building and facility. At the highest level the objectives of MSE are to enhance scientific research and education for the partner communities. MSE will use an 11.25 meter aperture telescope and dedicated multiobject fibre spectroscopy instrumentation to perform survey science observations , collecting spectra from more than 4,000 astronomical targets simultaneously. The project completed

1785-457: The faint end (g ~16) of the PLATO target distribution, to allow for statistical analysis of the properties of planet-hosting stars as a function of stellar and chemical parameters.   This will allow for highly complete statistical studies of the prevalence of stellar multiplicity into the regime of hot Jupiters for this and other samples, and also directly measure binary fractions away from

1836-410: The fibre inputs with lamps which give a broad continuum of energy over the wavelength range ("flats") and lamps which have a number of narrow-band emission lines ("arcs") such as hollow-cathode lamps . Lamp flat and arc calibration measurements are taken in the nighttime using the on-telescope calibration system, before and after every science observation, with the telescope mount and fibre positioner in

1887-502: The fibre tips at the telescope optical focal plane, to two banks of spectrometers that will measure the spectrum of the light gathered by each fibre. The fibre tips are positioned precisely at the position of astronomical interest in the focal plane by the array of remotely commandable tilting spine fibre positioners, each responsible for one fibre delivering light to one of the two spectrometer banks. The fibre transmission system uses high numeric aperture fibres to optically directly match

1938-469: The instrumentation package stable in the sky coordinate system as the parallactic angle changes during observations. Science data can be acquired in two possible spectral resolution modes: a high resolution of about R = 20,000 | 40,000, and a low/moderate resolution mode spanning R = 2,000 to R = 6,000. MSE is designed to be able to take spectra in both modes simultaneously during any observation. A fibre optic transmission system relays light gathered into

1989-679: The internal dark matter profile to be derived with high accuracy and will probe the outskirts of the dark matter halos that account for external tidal perturbations as the dwarfs orbit the Galaxy. In the Galactic halo, high precision radial velocity mapping of every known stellar stream will reveal the extent of heating through interactions with dark sub-halos and place strong limits on the mass function of dark sub-halos around an L* galaxy. On cluster scales, MSE will use galaxies, planetary nebulae and globular clusters as dynamical tracers to provide

2040-516: The mean line of sight once per year, delivering a continuous survey of the same region of the sky. The space observatory is planned to launch at the end of 2026 to the Sun-Earth L 2 Lagrange point . The public release of photometric data (including light curves) and high-level science products for each quarter will be made after six months and by one year after the end of their validation period. The data are processed by quarters because this

2091-490: The mission has these goals: PLATO will differ from the CoRoT , TESS , CHEOPS , and Kepler space telescopes in that it will study relatively bright stars (between magnitudes 4 and 11), enabling a more accurate determination of planetary parameters, and making it easier to confirm planets and measure their masses using follow-up radial velocity measurements on ground-based telescopes. Its dwell time will be longer than that of

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2142-400: The operations sequence, going from survey definition to the delivery of science data. The final data product that MSE will deliver are 2-dimensional images of spectra, and 1-dimensional spectra, corrected for observatory signature, spectrally calibrated, and co-added where multiple measurements of the same object at the same resolution have been made. The data release policy will be finalized as

2193-576: The partner communities. While details of how MSE will be used to support education are being developed within those communities, CFHT has a proven track record with a number of innovative educational and community outreach programs, such as the Maunakea Scholars program, that engage the Hawai‘i community. Concepts proven through CFHT's existing projects have a broader applicability to the entire international partnership. Such programs will provide

2244-401: The project approaches the start of construction, and is expected to include an immediate release of data to partner organization scientists and survey teams, and a later release to the public. MSE is designed to achieve its science objectives with the least impact possible on the Maunakea summit both during construction and when operating the resultant observatory. The project is an upgrade to

2295-445: The remnants of the building blocks of the Galaxy. MSE will push these techniques forward to help realize Freeman and Bland-Hawthorne's “New Galaxy" MSE will probe the dynamics of dark matter over all astronomical spatial scales. For Milky Way dwarf galaxies , MSE will obtain complete samples of tens of thousands of member stars to very large radius and with multiple epochs to identify and remove binary stars. Such analyses will allow

2346-470: The same observing configuration as used in the science observation. Lamp flat and arc calibration measurements are also taken in the daytime using the off-telescope calibration system, which can provide a measurement with higher signal to noise ratio. Lamp flats are also taken in a reference configuration of the telescope and positioner, to measure the relative energy of the twilight flats and the lamp flats. Twilight flat calibration measurements are used to give

2397-408: The science case for 12 observational surveys, each addressing a key science question, and groups those 12 cases into three science themes: A set of six survey programs that are uniquely possible with MSE [ref] are used to define and constrain the technical characteristics of the observatory. MSE will provide spectroscopic characterization at high spectral resolution and high signal to noise ratio of

2448-476: The selected M3 class science mission for implementation as part of its Cosmic Vision Programme. Other competing concepts that were studied included the four candidate missions EChO , LOFT , MarcoPolo-R and STE-QUEST . In January 2015, ESA selected Thales Alenia Space , Airbus DS , and OHB System AG to conduct three parallel phase B1 studies to define the system and subsystem aspects of PLATO, which were completed in 2016. On 20 June 2017, ESA adopted PLATO in

2499-651: The technical feasibility of such a facility as an upgrade to CFHT. In 2014, the CFHT established a project office in Waimea HI , to lead and develop the project through to the start of construction. The MSE participants in 2018 consists of national-level or state-level organizations in Canada, France, Hawai‘i, Australia, China and India, with CFHT Corp as the executive agency for the project. University groups in Spain also played

2550-476: The telescope focal ratio, and to provide good mechanical stability and optical throughput while minimizing focal-ratio degradation. The fibre core diameter, which sets the size of the sky sampled by each fibre tip, is different in those fibres used in the high resolution mode from those used in the low/moderate resolution mode, due to the difference in angular size of astronomical targets anticipated in each mode. MSE's high resolution spectrometers are located within

2601-424: The visible and near-infrared bands from 360 nm to about 1.8 um when operated in their lowest resolution (a resolution of about 3,000), or about one-half the wavelength coverage when operated with moderate resolution (a resolution of about 6,000). Science exposures are calibrated using both on-telescope and off-telescope lamps, and the twilight sky. During the observing night, on-telescope lamps illuminate

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