Projects
CFHT and its communities prepare the future of the Observatory
Serving today's users : the first priority!
CFHT's first priority is to provide its users with exquisite data using state-of-the-art instruments for their ongoing research endeavors. Thanks to the excellent of its site, the quality of its staff, the uniqueness for its users of its instrument suite, the efficiency of its Queued Service Observing mode, and the in-house pre-processing of the raw data, CFHT and its users have successfully placed the observatory at the forefront of today's astronomy with performances as good as, if not better than, many 8 to 10-m class telescopes.
Serving the users of tomorrow: a close second...
Astronomical instrumentation is rapidly evolving. Other facilities are developing new capabilities which will render some of our instruments less competitive. New exciting areas of research are also developing fast and require new capabilities. In order to satisfy its users and to maintain CFHT as one of the major contributors in visible and near infrared astronomy, CFHT and its communities must constantly think of what will come next.
This page intends to present projects which are at various stages of developments and of various scopes. They have all in common the potential to contribute to the development of the Observatory. Some will serve directly the users, while others will help to maintain capabilities while fostering collaborations with new users communities.
New instruments - In various stages of development
SITELLE - In Phase B
SITELLE is an imaging Fourier Transform Spectrograph which design is based on an instrument, SpIOMM, currently in operation at the Mt Mégantic Observatory.
SITELLE will provide a 15' field of view with a 0.8"/pixel spatial sampling and a spectral resolution of up to 5000. It is currenlty in Phase B, led by the Université Laval (PI: Laurent Drissen).
SPIRou - In Phase B
SPIRou is a cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph and polarimeter intended to cover the near-infrared up to the K band with a resolution of 50,000. SPIRou is designed to provide radial velocity determinations with a 1m/s accuracy.
The two main scientific applications are in the following fields:
SPIRou is currently starting a Phase B (Summer 2011) led by the Laboratoire Astrophysique de Toulouse-Tarbes in close collaboration with the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in collaboration with various institutes.
More information on SPIRou is available here.
`IMAKA -In Phase A
`IMAKA is a wide-field visible imager using GLAO (Ground Layer Adaptive Optics) aimed at providing 0.3" images (R-band) on a 1 degree field of view.
More information on `IMAKA is available here.
New instrument - Proposed, but not selected
Gyes - Completed a Phase A in mid-October 2010
Gyes is a wide-field multi-object spectrograph currently under study at Observatoire de Paris - GEPI (PI: P. Bonifacio). Its main science driver is the follow-up of the Gaia mission.
More information on GYES is available here.
In house development
OAP - Observatory Automation Project
Dome venting
DANCE - Dual Amplifier New CCD for ESPaDOnS
OPERA - Open-source Pipeline for ESPaDOnS Reduction and Analysis
Technology developments
`OHANA - Optical Hawaiian Array for Nanoradian Astronomy
CLOE - The CFHT-LSP On-sky Experiment
