First demonstration of OH suppression in a high efficiency near-infrared spectrograph

Abstract

Ground-based near-infrared astronomy is severely hampered by the forest of atmospheric emission lines resulting from the rovibrational decay of OH molecules in the upper atmosphere. The extreme brightness of these lines, as well as their spatial and temporal variability, makes accurate sky subtraction difficult. Selectively filtering these lines with OH suppression instruments has been a long standing goal for near-infrared spectroscopy. We have shown previously the efficacy of fibre Bragg gratings combined with photonic lanterns for achieving OH suppression. Here we report on PRAXIS, a unique near-infrared spectrograph that is optimised for OH suppression with fibre Bragg gratings. We show for the first time that OH suppression (of any kind) is possible with high overall throughput (18 per cent end-to-end), and provide examples of the relative benefits of OH suppression.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (17)

• The Photonic Lantern
• A method to remove residual OH emission from near infrared spectra
• A complex multi-notch astronomical filter to suppress the bright infrared sky
• GNOSIS: the first instrument to use fibre Bragg gratings for OH suppression
• The case for OH suppression at near-infrared wavelengths
• CISCO: Cooled Infrared Spectrograph and Camera for OHS on the Subaru Telescope
• p3d: a general data-reduction tool for fiber-fed integral-field spectrographs
• Suppression of the near-infrared OH night sky lines with fibre Bragg gratings - first results
• Lines and continuum sky emission in the near infrared: observational constraints from deep high spectral resolution spectra with GIANO-TNG
• OHS: OH-airglow Suppressor for the Subaru Telescope
• A Calibrated Measurement of the Near-IR Continuum Sky Brightness Using Magellan/FIRE
• The Narrow Line Region of the Seyfert 2 galaxy Mrk 78. An infrared view
• CIRPASS: description, performance and astronomical results
• Nuclear and Extended Spectra of NGC 1068 - I: Hints from Near-Infrared Spectroscopy
• PRAXIS: a low background NIR spectrograph for fibre Bragg grating OH suppression
• Photonic lantern behaviour and implications for instrument design
• Spatial and Temporal Stability of Airglow Measured in the Meinel Band Window at 1191.3 nm

Cited by in corpus (12)

• 2023 Astrophotonics Roadmap: pathways to realizing multi-functional integrated astrophotonic instruments
• Astrophotonics: astronomy and modern optics
• Potential of commercial SiN MPW platforms for developing mid/high-resolution integrated photonic spectrographs for astronomy
• Integrated Arbitrary Filter with Spiral Gratings: Design and Characterization
• Development of an integrated near-IR astrophotonic spectrograph
• Athermal package for OH suppression filters in astronomy part 1: design
• Astrophotonics -- current capabilities and the road ahead
• The near infrared airglow continuum conundrum. Constraints for ground-based faint object spectroscopy
• Astrophotonic Technologies
• Complex phase masks for fabricating OH-suppression filters for astronomy
• Seeking celestial Positronium with an OH-suppressed diffraction-limited spectrograph
• Temperature-compensating package for OH line filters for astronomy: II. manufacture, assembly, and performance study