AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 115 JWST
Poster, Wednesday, 9:20am-6:30pm, January 11, 2006, Exhibit Hall

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[115.13] NIRSpec - Near-IR Multi-Object Spectrograph for JWST

P. Jakobsen (ESA/ESTEC), S. Arribas (STScI/IAC), T. Boeker (ESA/ESTEC), A. Bunker (Exeter), S. Charlot (IAP), D. Crampton (HIA), P. Ferruit (CRAL), M. Franx (Leiden), R. Maiolino (Arcetri), G. de Marchi (ESA/ESTEC), H. Moseley, B. Rauscher (NASA/GSFC), M. Regan (STScI), H.-W. Rix (MPIA), J. Valenti (STScI)

NIRSpec will be the first slit-based astronomical multi-object spectrograph to fly in space, and is designed to provide spectra of faint objects over the near-infrared 1.0 - 5.0 micron wavelength range at spectral resolutions of R=100, R=1000 and R=2700. The instrument's all-reflective wide-field optics, together with its novel MEMS-based programmable micro-shutter array slit selection device and its large format low-noise HgCdTe detector arrays, combine to allow simultaneous observations of >100 objects within a 3.4 \times 3.5 arcmin field of view with unprecedented sensitivity. A selectable 3 \times 3 arcsec Integral Field Unit and five fixed slits are also available for detailed spectroscopic studies of single objects. NIRSpec is presently expected to be capable of reaching a continuum flux of 20 nJy (AB>28) in R=100 mode, and a line flux of 6 \times 10-19 erg s-1 cm-2 in R=1000 mode at S/N>3 in 104 s.

NIRSpec is being built for the European Space Agency (ESA) by EADS Astrium as part of ESA's contribution to the JWST mission. The NIRSpec micro-shutter and detector arrays are provided by NASA/GSFC.


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