ESPaDOnS
the new generation stellar spectropolarimeter

Designed and constructed at Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP) in France, ESPaDOnS, the new generation stellar spectropolarimeter, is fully operational and accessible to the whole CFHT community since semester 2005a. Totalling about 40% of the requested time in 2005 (excluding CFHT-LS), ESPaDOnS appears as the most popular CFHT instrument. A total of about 80 scientific nights were already allocated with ESPaDOnS since Feb. 2005; several scientific papers resulting from the first observations are already in press or submitted. An ADS list of selected published papers about ESPaDOnS and ESPaDOnS results is available here.

Recent news:
the surprising magnetic field of a young massive star is published in MNRAS (2006 Jun 06)
the simple magnetic field of an ultra-cool fully-convective star is published in Science (2006 Feb 03)
detection of a strong magnetic field in the innermost region of the protostellar accretion disc FU Ori is published in Nature (2005 Nov 24)
polarised spectra of hot magnetic stars collected with ESPaDOnS (after fixing a failing component) demonstrate that the polarisation crosstalk problem that ESPaDOnS was suffering is mostly fixed (2006 Jun 09)
a statistical study on the allocated time in previous semesters indicates that the oversubscription rate on ESPaDOnS is about twice higher in average than that of all other CFHT instruments, for a reason that still needs clarification (2006 Jan 19).

Design and performances of ESPaDOnS:
science drivers and instrument details
spectral domain and resolution
spectral response and global efficiency
thermal response and spectral stability
performances of Fresnel rhomb retarders
ccd readout modes and characteristics
Observing with ESPaDOnS:
exposure time calculator (updated)
observers' guide (to come soon)
known technical issues
instrument status
first scientific results
time allocation statistics
Control and data reduction software tools of ESPaDOnS:
control software and user interface
viewing, guiding and exposure meter facilities
temperature and pressure monitoring
observing procedures
data reduction routines
Documentation, picture gallery and credits:
related documentation (restricted access)
description of critical items
examples of frames
examples of spectra
instrument picture gallery
packing, shipping and transport
project team and budget
© Ken Done
ESPaDOnS is a collaborative project funded by France (CNRS, MENESR, OMP, LATT), Canada (NSERC), CFHT and ESA.
The old (and mostly out of date) ESPaDOnS web site can still be accessed at this address.

© Jean-François Donati, last update Jun 09 2006. statistics: