TY - JOUR A1 - Ellis, S. C. A1 - Bland-Hawthorn, Joss A1 - Lawrence, J. A1 - Horton, A. J. A1 - Trinh, C. A1 - Leon-Saval, S. G. A1 - Shortridge, K. A1 - Bryant, J. A1 - Case, S. A1 - Colless, M. A1 - Couch, W. A1 - Freeman, K. A1 - Gers, L. A1 - Glazebrook, K. A1 - Haynes, R. A1 - Lee, S. A1 - Löhmannsröben, Hans-Gerd A1 - O'Byrne, J. A1 - Miziarski, S. A1 - Roth, M. A1 - Schmidt, B. A1 - Tinney, C. G. A1 - Zheng, J. T1 - Suppression of the near-infrared OH night-sky lines with fibre Bragg gratings - first results JF - Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society N2 - The background noise between 1 and 1.8 ?mu m in ground-based instruments is dominated by atmospheric emission from hydroxyl molecules. We have built and commissioned a new instrument, the Gemini Near-infrared OH Suppression Integral Field Unit (IFU) System (GNOSIS), which suppresses 103 OH doublets between 1.47 and 1.7?mu m by a factor of 1000 with a resolving power of 10?000. We present the first results from the commissioning of GNOSIS using the IRIS2 spectrograph at the Anglo-Australian Telescope. We present measurements of sensitivity, background and throughput. The combined throughput of the GNOSIS fore-optics, grating unit and relay optics is 36?per cent, but this could be improved to 46?per cent with a more optimal design. We measure strong suppression of the OH lines, confirming that OH suppression with fibre Bragg gratings will be a powerful technology for low-resolution spectroscopy. The integrated OH suppressed background between 1.5 and 1.7 mu m is reduced by a factor of 9 compared to a control spectrum using the same system without suppression. The potential of low-resolution OH-suppressed spectroscopy is illustrated with example observations of Seyfert galaxies and a low-mass star. The GNOSIS background is dominated by detector dark current below 1.67 mu m and by thermal emission above 1.67 mu m. After subtracting these, we detect an unidentified residual interline component of 860 +/- 210 photons s-1 m-2?arcsec-2?mu m-1, comparable to previous measurements. This component is equally bright in the suppressed and control spectra. We have investigated the possible source of the interline component, but were unable to discriminate between a possible instrumental artefact and intrinsic atmospheric emission. Resolving the source of this emission is crucial for the design of fully optimized OH suppression spectrographs. The next-generation OH suppression spectrograph will be focused on resolving the source of the interline component, taking advantage of better optimization for a fibre Bragg grating feed incorporating refinements of design based on our findings from GNOSIS. We quantify the necessary improvements for an optimal OH suppressing fibre spectrograph design. KW - atmospheric effects KW - instrumentation: miscellaneous KW - infrared: general Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21602.x SN - 0035-8711 VL - 425 IS - 3 SP - 1682 EP - 1695 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Trinh, Christopher Q. A1 - Ellis, Simon C. A1 - Bland-Hawthorn, Joss A1 - Lawrence, Jon S. A1 - Horton, Anthony J. A1 - Leon-Saval, Sergio G. A1 - Shortridge, Keith A1 - Bryant, Julia A1 - Case, Scott A1 - Colless, Matthew A1 - Couch, Warrick A1 - Freeman, Kenneth A1 - Löhmannsröben, Hans-Gerd A1 - Gers, Luke A1 - Glazebrook, Karl A1 - Haynes, Roger A1 - Lee, Steve A1 - O'Byrne, John A1 - Miziarski, Stan A1 - Roth, Martin M. A1 - Schmidt, Brian A1 - Tinney, Christopher G. A1 - Zheng, Jessica T1 - Gnosis - the first instrument to use fiber bragg gratings for OH suppression JF - The astronomical journal N2 - The near-infrared is an important part of the spectrum in astronomy, especially in cosmology because the light from objects in the early universe is redshifted to these wavelengths. However, deep near-infrared observations are extremely difficult to make from ground-based telescopes due to the bright background from the atmosphere. Nearly all of this background comes from the bright and narrow emission lines of atmospheric hydroxyl (OH) molecules. The atmospheric background cannot be easily removed from data because the brightness fluctuates unpredictably on short timescales. The sensitivity of ground-based optical astronomy far exceeds that of near-infrared astronomy because of this long-standing problem. GNOSIS is a prototype astrophotonic instrument that utilizes "OH suppression fibers" consisting of fiber Bragg gratings and photonic lanterns to suppress the 103 brightest atmospheric emission doublets between 1.47 and 1.7 mu m. GNOSIS was commissioned at the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope with the IRIS2 spectrograph to demonstrate the potential of OH suppression fibers, but may be potentially used with any telescope and spectrograph combination. Unlike previous atmospheric suppression techniques GNOSIS suppresses the lines before dispersion and in a manner that depends purely on wavelength. We present the instrument design and report the results of laboratory and on-sky tests from commissioning. While these tests demonstrated high throughput (approximate to 60%) and excellent suppression of the skylines by the OH suppression fibers, surprisingly GNOSIS produced no significant reduction in the interline background and the sensitivity of GNOSIS+IRIS2 is about the same as IRIS2. It is unclear whether the lack of reduction in the interline background is due to physical sources or systematic errors as the observations are detector noise dominated. OH suppression fibers could potentially impact ground-based astronomy at the level of adaptive optics or greater. However, until a clear reduction in the interline background and the corresponding increasing in sensitivity is demonstrated optimized OH suppression fibers paired with a fiber-fed spectrograph will at least provide a real benefit at low resolving powers. KW - atmospheric effects KW - infrared: diffuse background KW - instrumentation: miscellaneous Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/145/2/51 SN - 0004-6256 VL - 145 IS - 2 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER -