I have leadership roles in several astronomical instrumentation projects:
FRIDA
FRIDA is an infrared camera and integral-field spectrograph for the adaptive-optics focus of the Gran Telescopio Canarias. We anticipate delivering FRIDA at the end of 2023.
FRIDA will use a 2048 by 2048 HAWAII-2RG detector with sensitivity from 0.9 to 2.5 microns. For integral field spectroscopy, it will use an image slicer similar to the one used in FISICA. FRIDA will provide spectral resolutions of roughly 1000, 4000, and, uniquely for a diffraction-limited integral-field spectrograph, 30,000.
This project is a collaboration between the Instituto de Astronomía of the UNAM and groups at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, the University of Florida, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and the Centro de Ingeniería y Desarrollo Industrial.
I am the Principal Investigator of FRIDA.
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COLIBRÍ will be a robotic 1.3-m telescope at the Observatory Astronómico Nacional in Mexico. DDRAGO will be the optical camera, with two 4k × 4k CCD viewing the same 26 arcmin field in the blue and the red. CAGIRE will view the same field in the infrared.
COLIBRÍ is designed for follow-up of gamma-ray bursts detected by the future SVOM satellite. It will be installed in 2022.
COLIBRÍ, DDRAGO, and CAGIRE are a collaboration between the UNAM, CONACyT, Université de Aix-Marseille, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, and CNES.
I am the scientific co-lead and technical lead of DDRAGO, am responsible for the robotic control system of COLIBRÍ, am responsible for the infrastructure work packet(the building, services, and the mirror and instrument handling systems), and am a member of the transients science team.
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COATLI is a robotic 50-cm telescope at the Observatory Astronómico Nacional in Mexico.
COATLI is currently operating with an interim instrument that provides iages with 1 arcsec FWHM over a field of view of 12 arcmin. However, our short-term aim is to install a fast-guiding imager which will provide 0.35 arcsec FWHM images over a field of 4.5 arcsec and coverage of a large fraction of the sky.
I am the scientific lead of COATLI.
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DDOTI is a wide-field robotic imager with an instantaneous field of view of about 72 square degrees installed in the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional in Mexico. DDOTI stands for “Deca-Degree Optical Transient Imager”.
The key science goals of DDOTI are the localization of the optical transients associated with relativistic stellar transients — gamma-ray bursts detected by the GBM instrument on the Fermi satellite and with gravitational-wave events detected by LIGO and Virgo. These transients typically have positional uncertainties of order 100 square degrees, and so their localization requires a wide-field imager like DDOTI.
DDOTI is also be used for studies of variability in young stars and to search for near-earth objects.
I am the scientific co-lead and technical lead of DDOTI.
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RATIR is a multi-channel optical and infrared imager for the robotic 1.5-meter Johnson telescope at the Observatory Astronómico Nacional in Mexico.
RATIR was designed for follow-up observations of the afterglows of gamma-ray bursts detected by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory satellite, but is also used for other science.
I am the technical lead for the telescope, a member of the team that developed the instrument, and a member of the GRB science team.