LLAMAS is a wide-field, seeing limited optical IFU spectrometer for the 6.5-meter Baade Telescope. Using 2400 optical fibers, it produces 3D images that are 34 x 35 arcseconds on the sky, sampled at a pitch of 0.75 arcseconds, with no dead space between fibers (>93% fill factor). Each spectrum covers the full optical bandpass from 3500-9850 Angstroms with no breaks in coverage.
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LLAMAS is under contstuction at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, with significant contributions from collaborators at MIT Lincoln Laboratories, NC State University, and the Magellan Observatory. Click below for more information about the team.
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LLAMAS is tentatively scheduled to commence shared-risk observing in the 2024A proposal cycle. The assembly team is approaching a half-instrument test that will verify performance of the IFU and spectrographs. The first advance shipment of equipment for instrument infrastructure (cooling, mechnical interfaces) is now underway, while we await delivery of the remaining CCDs, which have required factory rework.