Spectroscopy

It what noted that the baffle lamps used for calibrations seem to come on very slowly. Talking to the manufactures they suggested changing the mode of operation of the lamp power supplies from DC to AC, and this was implemented.

A new script is offered to make the spectroscopy calibration observations with NOTCam easier. Since this must be done at night and involves closing the mirror covers, the script allows one to do 1-5 wavelength regions in one go. The script takes 1 Argon, 1 Xenon, and 3 Halogen lamp images per wavelength region each using the default exposure times. The script takes 2 minutes per wavelength region plus 1.5 minutes for mirror-cover closing and opening.

Standard-star observations taken with the new Z band filter and in YJHK were analysed. The overall efficiency was found to be $\sim$7% in Z, $\sim$9% in Y, $\sim$10% in J, $\sim$7% in H, and $\sim$6% in K. As previous J-band measurements showed better results we suspect the measurement may be affected by seeing and transparency and we need to repeat these tests.

Thomas Augusteijn 2013-05-10