The Hector instrument will be built in stages and the first stage is called Hector-I.

Will employ the first new Hector spectrograph (blue and red arm) alongside the existing AAOmega spectrograph. Both will be fed with new-generation hexabundles. The higher resolution Hector spectrograph will have 11 x 61-core (15 arcsec diameter) and 1 x 91-core (18 arcsec) hexabundles. AAOmega will host the largest hexabundles with 3 x 61-core, 1 x 91-core, 1x 127-core, and 2 x 169-core (27 arcsec diameter). An additional 37-core hexabundle on each spectrograph will observe a star for calibration.

Hector spectrograph – Higher resolution 1.3Angstroms from 372.7-776.1nm

  • R~3800 @ Hbeta/[OIII]
  • R~5000 @ Halpha/N[II]

AAOmega – Lower resolution R~1700 blue, R~4500 red.

•A new robotic system will position magnets across the field plate which will rotate the hexabundles in 3 axes to match telecentricity and ferule positioning, which will improve throughput over the existing 2dF facility. Observers will put the configured plate onto the telescope and attach the 21 hexabundles. One plate can be being configured by the robot while another is observing.

•Science operations by end-2021.

•Offers significant science gains over SAMI with increases in survey speed, galaxy coverage to 2 effective radii for ~70% of galaxies and higher spectral resolution.

•Will deliver the only IFS survey large enough to connect galaxy evolution and kinematics to large-scale-structure to explain the evolutionary history leading to individuality of galaxies.

Hector science target regions will be chosen within the future WAVES Survey footprint where significant auxilliary data will be available. In addition clusters will be selected to add the highest halo masses.

Instrument Papers

The published papers related to the instrumentation of Hector can be found at the following page.

Hector-II

Hector-II would be a future extension of Hector-I by adding new modules. Each module is one Hector spectrograph (blue and red arm) plus 10 new larger hexagonally-packed hexabundles with up to 217 fibre cores each.

•Hector-II allows a faster survey speed and higher fraction of galaxies imaged to 2 effective radii.

•Modules will be added as funding becomes available. It is currently not funded.

Table Summary