Single order (formerly coudé spectrograph or D700 spectrograph) is fiber fed medium resolution spectrograph working in the first and second spectral orders. Wavelength coverage of the second order is 4000-5100 Å (near UV to blue) with order length of 233 Å; wavelength coverage of the first order is 5100-8900 Å (green to near IR) with order length of 470 Å. Resolving power is ∼13 000 in Hα spectral region. The camera features the PyLoN 2048x512BX (E2V 42-10 BX) CCD detector (cooled by liquid nitrogen to -115°C) with a pixel size of 13.5 μm. The main advantage is that it depicts wide interval of wavelengths (475 Å in the Hα spectral region) with uniform S/N. More information about technical specification and calibration can be found here.
Camera main characteristics
Camera | Chip | Resolution | Pixel size | Reading |
PyLoN | E2V 42-10 BX | 2048×512 | 13.5 x 13.5 μm | 19 s |
Spectrograph main characteristics
1as order |
Order length |
2nd order |
order length |
Resolution |
5100-8900 Å | 470 Å | 4000-5100 Å | 233 Å | ~13000 (Hα) |
Optical layout
- Slit width: 0.2 mm (0.6 arcsec)
- Flat field lamp: Hollow cathode
- Comparison light: ThAr lamp, 15 mA
- Exposuremeter: just behind the slit, semi-translucent mirror, about 5% of the light to the exposuremeter
- Collimator: focal ratio f/32, out of axis
- Grating – works in the first and second spectral orders
- Schmidt camera (correction plate + spherical mirror), F=700mm

Sample images
SNR vs. Exposure time
The appropriate exposure time can be roughly estimated. It is seen that for the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of ~30, an 1-hour exposure time is needed for a 10-mag star. However, the particular SNR depends not only on the zenith distance but mainly on the observing conditions.
