Joint Astrophysical Colloquium
The WEAVE surveys: status and project update
Antonella Vallenari (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova)
Thursday 22/11/2018 @ 11:30, Sala IV piano Battiferro
WEAVE is a new multi-object survey spectrograph for the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, on La Palma in the Canary Islands. It will allow astronomers to take optical spectra of up to ~1000 targets over a two-degree field of view in a single exposure, or to carry out integral-field spectroscopy using 20 deployable mini integral-field units or one large fixed integral-field unit. WEAVE's fibre-fed spectrograph comprises two arms, one optimised for the blue and one for the red, and offers two possible spectroscopic resolutions, 5000 and 20,000. WEAVE will operate for the initial five years as survey instrument with some time for PI projects. We will review the status of the project and the science cases for the planned surveys.