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D.W. Eldredge, D.P. Clemens, E. Tollestrup, L.K. Deutsch, K.A. Janes (Boston University Institute for Astrophysical Research), M.W. Buie, E.W. Dunham (Lowell Observatory)
Mimir will be a multi-function, near-infrared, imaging spectrograph for the Lowell Observatory Perkins 1.8-m telescope. Mimir will address scientific questions spanning a wide range of astronomical topics, especially in planetary science and Galactic astronomy. Mimir will perform imaging, grism spectroscopy, and polarimetry. The flexibility and multiple capabilities of Mimir coupled with its large field of view (10' \times 10' with a 1k \times 1k detector array) will make it the workhorse instrument for the Perkins telescope. First light for Mimir will occur in the fall of 2001.
The optical design of Mimir consists of five components: a corrector, a collimator, an f/5 camera, an f/18 camera, and a pupil-viewer. A pair of slit wheels are located at the telescope focus. A half-wave plate and three filter wheels are located about the pupil. The first path is the f/5 camera, which will be used for wide field (10' \times 10') imaging, spectroscopy, and polarimetry. The second path is the f/18 camera, which will be used for high-resolution imaging (2.7' \times 2.7') and spectroscopy. The final path will be an L-band pupil-viewer for aligning a Lyot stop.
The Mimir design has an aluminum optical bench to support all optics units and mechanisms. The optics will be cooled to 77 K using a two-stage, closed-cycle cryogenic refrigerator. The initial detector for Mimir will be a 512 \times 512 ALADDIN Indium Antimonide array with 27 \times 27 \mu m pixels. The instrument is designed to be upgraded to a 1024 \times 1024 array. The detector array will be cooled by the second stage of the cryogenic refrigerator to 35 K.