IDS

The Intermediate Dispersion Spectrograph is a long-slit spectrograph which sits at the Cassegrain Focal station of the 2.5m INT and is equipped with two cameras, called the 235mm and 500mm Cameras according to their respective focal lengths.

Starting from semester 06B, IDS is offered with the whole set of gratings (16), but only with the 235 mm camera and the EEV10 CCD. Possible grating combinations with this configuration  allow dispersions of between 0.24 and 3.7  Å per pixel. The spatial scale along the slit is 0.4 arcsec per pixel. The full unvignetted slit length is 3.3 arcmin.

The SIGNAL program contains reliable updated measurements of the IDS throuhgput, with an accuracy of some 20%. You can then safely use it to estimate your exposure times.

Note that IDS will be scheduled in minimum blocks of 4 weeks, as the ING can only support a small number of instrument changes each semester. For this reason, we invite the community to present large programmes to make best use of the INT (smaller proposals asking no less than 4 nights are still accepted).

Details on the possible instrumental configurations and capabiliities are presented through the links in this page, which are meant to help astronomers who are considering applying for time on the instrument, as well as to provide up-to-the minute advice on practical observing. Should you have any comment on these pages or questions about the instrument, mail the IDS instrument specialist (Romano Corradi rcorradi@ing.iac.es).