Inside the HARPS-N spectrograph

The big defraction grating on its zerodur support, HARPS-N spectrograph, Galileo telescope
May 21, 2012

  Francesco Pepe invited me to see inside the HARPS spectrograph. I was very lucky, because the enclosure was closed for the inauguration, and closed again (probably for years) soon after I took these photos. Of course I had to wear special over-clothes to prevent dust getting into the instrument. The top photo shows the grating, which splits the starlight into a rainbow, and the bottom one shows the collimator,…

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