Speaker
Description
The Near-Ultraviolet eXplorer (NUX) is a proposed ground-based observatory that will operate at 300-350 nm to survey fast, hot transient sources. At the moment, its scientific and technical feasibility is being tested with a prototype system called Proto-NUX. The main purpose of Proto-NUX is to find the atmospheric throughput and variability in the 300-350 nm band, and to determine the limiting magnitude and observational constraints under different atmospheric conditions and observing elevations.
For this, a commercially available telescope system has been modified to operate efficiently in the near-ultraviolet (NUV) regime. Proto-NUX is based on a 36 cm RASA telescope and is equipped with a custom fused silica NUV transparent corrector plate, NUV transparent lenses, UV-reflective coated mirrors, and a NUV sensitive CMOS camera. Three near-UV filters are used to find the optimal wavelength range in which Proto-NUX should operate. We have done test observations in Amsterdam and at the Pic du Midi Observatory to validate the system throughput, image quality, detector and mount performance, and overall stability. These performance tests are critical to further optimize ground-based NUV telescopes.
During my presentation, I will introduce the instrumental design of Proto-NUX and present the performance tests that we have carried out to verify the technical feasibility of ground-based observations in this wavelength range.
| Talk category | NOVA Network 3 |
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