The MOONS project is to build a multi-object spectrograph for two wavelength ranges:: visible light and near infra-red. This complex instrument will collect light from numerous sources simultaneously using up to 1 000 fibres distributed over a wide field of view.
Combined with the power of the VLT, this new instrument, with its unique capabilities, will enable us to study the formation and evolution of galaxies over essentially the entire history of the Universe.
The infra-red capabilities of MOONS will be such that astronomers will be able to study regions which are strongly obscured by the dust in the central regions of our galaxy.
The building of such an instrument is deemed vital in order to complete the existing wide field imaging surveys.
MOONS will also furnish the extra information which is required for certain space missions. It will provide the spectrosopic monitoring crucial for the on-going Gaia space mission. It will also have an important rôle to play for Euclid, ESA’s future space mission programmed for after 2020, and which will carry out large extra-galactic surveys. It will operate in the same spectral range as the space-based observations, and so enable their calibration to be made.
Consortium
The MOONS project brings together scientists and engineers in a consortium led by the Science and Technology Facilities Council - UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, Royaume-Uni ; it consosts of the CAAUL, Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Lisbon University, ; the GEPI, Paris Observatory, France ; the INAF Florence, Bologna, Milan and Rome, Italy ; the AIUC, Centre for Astro-Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago Chili; the Cavendish Laboratory and Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK; the ETH Zürich, Institute for Astronomy, Switzerland; Geneva University via the Geneva Observatory, Sauverny, Switzerland and the ESO.