Hardware and Software
Some Recent Results
The hardware and software activities of the OPINAS group in the last three years were focused on seven main projects: the design and construction of instruments for (1) the European Southern Observatory (ESO) facilities (KMOS and MICADO), (2) the Hobby-Eberly telescope (HET) with the HET Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), (3) the Wendelstein Observatory 2m telescope (3KK Camera), (4) the McDonald 2.7m telescope (VIRUS-W spectrograph, a travel instrument also operable at other telescopes); plus the development of software for (5) the HETDEX experiment (the CURE pipeline) and (6) the PanSTARRS1 project (the Photometric Classification Server); and finally (7) the proposal for the ESA EUCLID satellite mission, and specifically the contribution for the NIR part NIP. Following the philosophy of the group, the projects are shared between the Max-Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) and the Observatory of the Ludwig-Maximilians University (USM), through which the Wendelstein Observatory is operated. Most hardware activities are carried out in the labs of USM while the development of the data analysis tools is taking place at MPE. Except for the development of the 3KK camera, all our activities are embedded in international collaborations. They benefit from financial support by the Max-Planck Gesellschaft, the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, the German Science Foundation, the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education and the Bavarian state.