The Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) is one of the three instruments on board the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) to be launched in December 2001. The IRS will provide high resolution spectra (R≈600) from 10–37 μm and low resolution spectra (R≥60) from 5–40 μm. Its high sensitivity and “spectral mapping”-mode make it a powerful instrument for observing both faint point-like and extended so...

We describe the design, performance and scientific objectives of the NASA-funded ALICE instrument aboard the ESA Rosetta asteroid flyby/comet rendezvous mission. ALICE is a lightweight, low-power, and low-cost imaging spectrograph optimized for cometary far-ultraviolet (FUV) spectroscopy. It will be the first UV spectrograph to study a comet at close range. It is designed to obtain spatially-re...

High resolution spectroscopy experiments with visible adaptive optics (AO) telescopes at Starfire Optical Range and Mt. Wilson have demonstrated that spectral resolution can be routinely improved by a factor of ~ 10 over the seeing-limited case with no extra light losses at visible wavelengths. With large CCDs now available, a very wide wavelength range can be covered in a single exposure. In t...

Starbug is a robotic positioning development concept for deploying many payloads, such as pickoff optics, optical fibres, integral field units, to micron level accuracy over a flat or curved focal surface. With a heritage of fibre positioners such as 2dF, OzPoz and FMOS-Echidna, this concept addresses some of the limitations of other positioning systems to provide a reliable, cost effective way...