SPIRou News
2023, Oct 12

The full SPIRou data set from 18B to 23A has been reprocessed with the 0.7.286 version of the Apero pipeline. The new products are being sent to CADC. For the night+12h reduction (the so-called "Quicklook" data) we are still using the older 0.6.132 for the moment.

2022, March 2

The full set of SPIRou data from 19A to 21B has been processed with the 0.6.132 and is available at CADC. For each star, a unique template based on all observations between Feb 2019 and Sept 2021 has been built and used for a new telluric correction. PI are encouraged to use the publicly available CCF tool from E. Martioli (Martioli et al. 2022) to get the best RV from their data. The code is available from github.

2020, October 16

New DRS version 0.6.132 is installed to re-process SPIRou data...

2020, August 25

SPIRou receives new rhombs. The instrument efficiency is improved by a factor of 2.7 at 1 micron and of the order of 30% in H.

2019, February 13

First science observations for SPIRou!

2019, 24 January

SPIRou passes the Final Acceptance Review! Science observations will start mid February

2018, 24 April:

First light on sky! A successful first light is followed by three commissioning runs (end of April, end of May, and end of July) where engineering observations are performed to quantify the instrument performances.

2018, April:

First images with the H4RG detector are of exquisite quality. Also the full spectral range is seen for the first time. The pipeline team is working to adapt the data reduction system to the new data format.

2018, March:

The first functionnal tests on SPIRou are ongoing. The cryostat was closed, pumped and cooled down from February 16 to March 15 for its first thermal cycle. Also, on March 5, the Cassegrain unit was successfully tested for acquisition and guiding on typical stars that SPIRou will observe. The guiding system as well as the cryogenic spectrograph have been behaving in the expected way and shown similar performances than before their dismounting and shipping.

A second cycle has been started on March 23, after the inclusion of the final H4RG detector at the focal plane.

2017, December:

SPIRou has been shipped to CFHT. It was then installed in the coude room at the end of January.

2017, November:

Performance and characterization of SPIRou are ongoing in the lab in Toulouse . An acceptance review follows and decides that the instrument is ready for the next phase of its life, atop Maunakea.

2017, March:

SPIRou just had its first light in the lab! Read the full story by the SPIRou team. As expected, more iterations are necessary to optimize the system alignement. Several calibration lamps were observed and the echelle orders look as expected.