CHIRON

	CHIRON Instrument
	Observing
	Software Documentation
	Technical Documents & Memos
	Electronics
	Papers on CHIRON

CHIRON [1] is a highly stable cross-dispersed echelle spectrometer at the SMARTS 1.5-meter telescope. It is fed by fiber and intended primarily for precise radial velocities.

Spectral resolution R~80000 (with image slicer: normal or Iodine mode) or R~25000 (fiber mode) or R~140000 (narrow-slit, bright stars), 3-pixel sampling
Spectral range 410-870 nm, fixed
Total efficiency ~6%

CHIRON is operational since 2011B. After upgrade, it is back in service since March 2012.
CHIRON replaces the previous spectrometer at 1.5m, FIBER ECHELLE [2]

Instrument

Overview [1]
Instrument manual (V.3, May 2012) [PDF, 801kB] [3]
CHIRON GUI User's Manual (January 31, 2011) [PDF, 1.6M] [4]
CHIRON instrument description (V.3, Jul 11, 2012) [5][PDF, 3.4MB] [6]
Guider camera and PC instructions (Oct. 2, 2008) (text) [7]
Instrument monitoring and reports

CHIRON monitor at CTIO [8]
Instrument Reports (CTIO) [9]
Instrument Reports [10] (Yale, protected)
Quality control [11](Yale, protected)

Observing

CHIRON at GSU [12]
How to use CHIRON (v2) [13]
CSS Instructions [14]
Nightly observing scripts [protected]
WIKI/Blog [15] at Yale [protected] [16]

Software Documentation

CHIRON Quick software troubleshooting guide (January 31, 2011) [PDF, 0.6M] [17]
CHIRON GUI User's Manual (July 2015) [PDF, 1.3M] [18]
Administrator's Manual. Software Architecture (July 2015) [PDF, 1M] [19]
PanView configuration (August 2011) [PDF, 884K] [20]
CHIRON scripting reference (January 2011) [PDF, 858K] [21]
CTIO 60 inches CHIRTEMP (CHIRON) (January 2012) [PDF, 1.2M] [22]
CHIRON basic data reduction (October 26, 2011) [PDF, 573K] [23]
F. Walter's data reduction package [24]for CHIRON.

Technical Documents & Memos

Recovery of the stuck slicer motor (Aug 15, 2015) [PDF, 185K] [25]
Exposure meter description (July 27, 2015) [PDF, 183K] [26]
New CHIRON shutter (Sep. 9, 2013) [PDF, 508kB] [27]
Efficiency measurements: August 1, 2013 [28] and June 12, 2012 [29]
CHIRON guider (April 18, 2013) [PDF] [30]
CHIRON temperature control (June 14, 2012) [PDF] [31]
Performance of the CHIRON CCD detector with the Torrent
controller (April 3, 2012) [PDF, 550KB] [32]
CHIRON efficiency tests (June 15, 2011) [PDF, 1.2MB] [33]
CHIRON CCD detector: tests in March 2011 (March 28, 2011) [PDF, 1.1MB] [34]
CHIRON efficiency (March 28, 2011) [PDF, 278KB] [35]
Commissioning run: March 9-14, 2011 by D. Fischer & M. Giguere (March 15, 2011) [PDF, 2.8MB] [36]
Instrument manual (V.2, May 25, 2011) [PDF, 801kB] [37]
CHIRON instrument description (V.2, May 6, 2011) [PDF, 3.4MB] [5]
CHIRON in pictures by AJ Riggs (Jan 23 2011) [PDF, 8M] [38]
CHIRON: Commissioning tests and alignment by J. Spronck, Ch. Schwab, M. Giguere (Feb 7, 2011) [PDF, 367K] [39]

Electronics

Hardware connections description (June 2012) [PDF, 1M] [40]
CHIRON Motor Control (January 31, 2011) [PDF, 1.9M] [41]
CCD temperature control (June 2011) [PDF, 1M] [42]
Comparison lamp automation (March 16, 2011) [PDF, 784KB] [43] and schematics [44]
Guider camera and PC instructions (October 2, 2008) (text) [7]
Electronic schemes:
Electronic box on the telescope [44]
RTD temperature sensors and iodine cell motor [45]
CHIRON focus and slicer motor control [46]
Access Enclosure temperature controller (Omega)
Zemax file [47] sp4fb.zmx

Papers on CHIRON

Schwab, Ch., Spronck, J., Tokovinin, A., Szymkowiak, A., Giguere, M., Fisher, D. Performance of the CHIRON high-resolution Echelle spectrograph. 2012, Proc. SPIE, 8446, paper 8446-9. [PDF, 1.6M] [48]
Spronck, J., Schwab, C., Tokovinin, A., Giguere, M., Szymkowiak, A., Fischer, D. Chiron - A Fiber-fed High-resolution Echelle Spectrometer At CTIO 1.5m Telescope May 2011, AAS Meeting #218, #409.03 [PDF, 12M] [49]
Schwab C., Spronck J.F.P., Tokovinin A., Fischer D. Design of the CHIRON high-resolution spectrometer at CTIO 2010, Proc. SPIE, 7735, paper 7735-159 [PDF, 1.3M] [50]
Tokovinin A., Fischer D., Schwab, Ch., Spronck J.F.P. CHIRON - new planet-finding spectrometer. Presentation at the conference Astronomy of Exoplanets with Precise Radial Velocities, PSU, Aug 16-19 2010 [51], [PDF, 885K] [52]
Tokovinin, A., Fischer, D.A., Bonati, M., Giguere, M.J., Moore, P., Schwab, Ch., Spronck, J. F. P., Szymkowiak, A. CHIRON - A Fiber Fed Spectrometer for Precise Radial Velocities. 2013, PASP, 125, 1336 [PDF, 1.1M] [53]
Brewer, J. M., Giguere, M., Fischer, D. A. CHIRON TOOLS: Integrated Target Submission, Scheduling and Observing Systems for a High-Resolution Fiber-Fed Spectrograph. 2014, PASP, 126, 48

Refereed publications using CHIRON data

Ingleby, L., Calvet, N., Herczeg, G. et al. 2013, ApJ, 767, A112
Ratajczak, M., Helminiak, K. G., Konacki, M. & Jordan, A. 2013, MNRAS, 433, 2357
Shore, S. N., De Gennaro Aquino, I., Schwarz, G. J. et al. 2013, A&A, 553, A123
Tokovinin, A. 2013, AJ, 145, 76
Shivvers, I., Bloom, J. S., Richards, J. W. 2014, MNRAS, 441, 343
Surina, F., et al. 2014, AJ, 147, 107
Jones, M. I., Jenkins, J. S., Bluhm, P. et al. 2014, A&A., 566, 113
Jones, M. I., Jenkins, J. S., Rojo, P. et al. 2015A&A...573A...3J
Soto, M.G., Jenkins, J.S., Jones, M.I. 2015, MNRAS, 451, 3131
Bowler, B.P., Shkolnik, E.L., Liu, M.C. et al. 2015, ApJS, 806, 62
Waisberg, I.R., Romani, R.W. 2015, ApJ, 805, 18
Mennickent, R.E., Djurasevic, G., Cabezas, M. et al. 2015, MNRAS, 448, 1137
Mehner, A., Davidson, K., Humphreys, R.M. et al. 2015, A&A, 578, 122
Jones, M., Jenkins, J. et al. 2015, A&A, 580, 14
Hinkel, N.R. et al. 2015, AJ, 150, 169
Tokovinin, A. 2015, AJ, 150, 177
Berta-Thompson, Z. K.; Irwin, J., Charbonneau, D. et al. 2015Natur.527..204B
Richardson, N.D. Gies, D. R., Gull, T. R., Moffat, A. F. J. & St-Jean, L. 2015, AJ, 150, 109
Munari, F. & Walter, F. 2016, MNRAS, 455, L57
Richardson, N.D. et al. 2016, MNRAS, 455, 244
Richardson, N. D., Madura, T. I., St-Jean, L. et al. 2016MNRAS.461.2540R
Gullikson, K. Kraus, A., Dodson-Robinson, S. Jaffe, D. et al. 2016, AJ, 151, 3
Bond, H.E., Ciardullo, R., Siegel, M.H. 2016, AJ, 151, 40
Fischer, D.A. et al. 2016, PASP, 128, 6001
Giguere, M.J. et al. 2016, ApJ, 824, 150
Teodoro, M. et al. 2016, ApJ, 819, 131
Tokovinin, A. 2016, AJ, 152, 11
Tokovinin, A. 2016, AJ, 152, 10
Gullikson, K., Kraus, A., Dodson-Robinson, S. 2016, AJ, 152, 40
Jones, M. I., Jenkins, J. S., Brahm, R. et al. 2016, A&A, 590, 38
Johnson, M. C., Endl, M. Cochran, W. D. et al. 2016ApJ...821...74J
Bluhm, P., Jones, M. I., Vanzi, L. et al. 2016, A&A, 593, 133
Ratajczak, M. et al. 2016, MNRAS, 461, 2234
Schaefer, G. H., Hummel, C. A., Gies, D. R. et al. 2016AJ....152..213S
Lester, K. V., Gies, D. R., Guo, Zhao 2016AJ....152..194L
Kane, S. R.; Wittenmyer, R. A., Hinkel, N. R. et al. 2016ApJ...821...65K
Richardson, N. D.; Russell, C. M. P.; St-Jean, L. et al. 2017MNRAS.471.2715R
Buysschaert, B., Neiner, C., Richardson, N. D. et al. 2017A&A...602A..91B
Linford, J. D., Chomiuk, L., Nelson, T. et al. 2017ApJ...842...73L
Buysschaert, B., Neiner, C., Richardson, N. D. et al. 2017A&A...602A..91B
Jones, M. I., Brahm, R., Wittenmyer, R. A. et al. 2017A&A...602A..58J
Mayer, P., Harmanec, P., Chini, R. et al. 2017A&A...600A..33M
Tokovinin, A., Latham, D. W. 2017ApJ...838...54T
Li, C.-J., Chu, Y.-H., Gruendl, R. A. et al. 2017ApJ...836...85L
Wittenmyer, R. A.; Jones, M. I., Zhao, J. et al. 2017AJ....153...51W
Khokhlov, S. A., Miroshnichenko, A. S., Mennickent, R. et al. 2017ApJ...835...53K

The design and construction of CHIRON was supported by the National Science Foundation under the ARRA AST-0923441.

Older Documents and Links [54]

CHIRON Overview

CHIRON is a highly stable cross-dispersed echelle spectrometer fed by fiber and intended primarily for precise radial velocities. Its major parameters are

Spectral resolution R~80000 (with image slicer)
Spectral range 410-870 nm, fixed.
Total efficiency ~6%

CHIRON is presently deployed at the telescope. It is available to NOAO users since 2011B.

The Figure below shows main elements of CHIRON from the user perspective. We follow the path of starlight, directed towards the fiber module (FEM) by a diagonal mirror located in the telescope guiding-and-acquisition module, GAM (at certain position of the pickup arm). The star image is focused on a mirror with a hole; most of the light goes into the fiber, the remaining halo is reflected towards the acquisition/guiding camera. A small prism can be placed behind the mirror to feed calibration light (quartz or Th-Ar lamps) to the spectrometer.

[55]

The spectrometer is located in the coude room. The light beam emerging from the fiber can be re-shaped into a slit-like image by the image slicer , to increase spectral resolution without light loss. The slicer can be moved out of the way to work with bare fiber image (with spectral resolution decreased to R ~30 000) or to mask the fiber by slits (increase the resolution at the expense of light loss). A viewer with manually-activated mirror is used only for troubleshooting, to see the sliced image. Other user-controlled elements are the shutter, iodine cell which can be placed in or out of the beam, and the focusing stage. The CCD is operated by a GUI-driven data-acquisition program.

To specify observations, astronomer needs to decide whether the image slicer is needed, whether the iodine cell should be used, and what detector parameters are best suited for the program. Although these choices can be made in any combinations, only a subset of all combinations makes sense. Observing modes suitable for typical science applications are.

Normal mode: use image slicer with 3x1 binning. Spectral resolution R=80000. Fast CCD readout (14s per image). Use for bright stars without iodne cell.
Iodine mode: same as normal, but with the iodine cell and restricted spectral range.
Fiber mode: no image slicer, 4x4 binning. Spectral resolution R~25000. Normal CCD readout (4s per image)

Each program must also specify required calibration data (Th-Ar and quartz spectra, bias frames, etc.).

CHIRON and its CCD are controlled by the ctioe1 computer, VNC connection to 139.229.12.29:9. Read the GUI user manual [4] to learn how to operate it.

[56]

Spectral format of CHIRON is shown here, with appriximate wavelengths near order centers in red. The order numbers are indicated by the scales above and below. The vertical green line shows the division between two CCD amplifiers. See the order table [57] here.

[58]

The Figure shows a portion of the Moon's spectrum around sodium D1, D2 lines recorded with CHIRON in January 2011.

Estimate of the signal-to-noise ratio per pixel vs. V-magnitude in the normal mode (top: image slicer, 3x1 binning, fast readout, R=80000) and fiber mode (bottom: fiber, 4x4 binning, normal readout, R=25000).
The IDL scripts used to produce these plots can serve to cover other non-standard modes: etc-norm.pro [59]and etc-fiber.pro [60]

Last updated: July 2014 A.Tokovinin

Links
[1] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/content/CHIRON-Overview
[2] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/content/Fiber-Echelle-Spectrograph
[3] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/manual_0.pdf
[4] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60S-1.2_chiron_User_Manual.pdf
[5] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/chiron.pdf
[6] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/chiron_0.pdf
[7] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/new_guider.txt
[8] http://ctiop8/instruments/CHIRON/CHIRON_Index.html
[9] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/chiron-instrument-reports
[10] https://sites.google.com/site/yalechiron/timeline
[11] http://exoplanets.astro.yale.edu/~matt/chi/
[12] https://chiron.astro.gsu.edu/
[13] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHIRON_STARTUP_v2.pdf
[14] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CSS_Instructions.pdf
[15] http://exoplanets.astro.yale.edu/groups/chiron/
[16] https://sites.google.com/site/yalechiron/chironobserving
[17] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60_QuickTroubleshooting.pdf
[18] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60S-1.3_chiron_User_Manual_0.pdf
[19] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60S-2.6_chiron_Software_Description_0.pdf
[20] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60S-6.2_chiron_panview_config.pdf
[21] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60S-3.1_chiron_scripting.pdf
[22] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60S-2.4-T_chirtemp_Software_Description.pdf
[23] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/chireduce.pdf
[24] http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/fwalter/SMARTS/NovaAtlas/ch_reduce/ch_reduce.html
[25] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/Slicer-Motor-Recovery.pdf
[26] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/EMv2.pdf
[27] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/shutter-doc.pdf
[28] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/ms_efficiency.pdf
[29] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/efficiency_0.pdf
[30] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/chiron-guider.pdf
[31] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/tempcontrol2.pdf
[32] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/report-Torrent.pdf
[33] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/efficiency_jun2011.pdf
[34] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/report_Mar6.pdf
[35] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/efficiency.pdf
[36] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/Mar2011_Report.pdf
[37] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/manual.pdf
[38] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHIRON_pics_v4.pdf
[39] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHIRON_CommissioningReport.pdf
[40] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60H-9.6_connections.pdf
[41] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60HF-8.1_chiron_motorcontrol.pdf
[42] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60HF-4.1_chiron_temperature_control.pdf
[43] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHI60HF-5.1_comparison_lamp_automation.pdf
[44] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/C1_revC.pdf
[45] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/C2_may2010.pdf
[46] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/Visio-C2.pdf
[47] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/sp4fb.zmx
[48] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/Schwab_CHIRON_SPIE2012.pdf
[49] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/CHIRON2poster.pdf
[50] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/Schwab_CHIRON_Spie2010.pdf
[51] http://exoplanets.astro.psu.edu/workshop/
[52] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/chiron_PSU.pdf
[53] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/chiron-PASP2013.pdf
[54] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/~atokovin/echelle/archive.html
[55] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/light-path.png
[56] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/Orders_new.png
[57] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/orders.txt
[58] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/moon-spectrum.png
[59] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/etc-norm.pro
[60] http://www.ctio.noao.edu/noao/sites/default/files/telescopes/smarts/tele15/etc-fiber.pro