Nick Konidaris

Author: Nick Konidaris

  • Cryogenic Materials

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    Nick Konidaris
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    Cryogenic lens designers of large optics need to know what materials are available and in what size. As of 19-Sept-2019 I’ve identified the following materials: Up to 200 mm in diameter with good (> 90% in 10 mm samples) throughput up to 2.45 µm in wavelength are: ZnSe E-SF03 Calcium Fluoride (CaF2) Infrasil (Heraeus fused…

  • Infrared Camera Design

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    Nick Konidaris
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    Cryogenic (SWIR; 0.7 – 2.5 µm) infrared cameras are specialized. For astronomical purposes thermal radiation from a room-temperature lens would swamp the signal beyond 1.5 µm. To deal with this signal such cameras at low temperatures (say 120 Kelvin). The set of materials that is transmissive to 2.5 µm with *well known* indices of refraction…

  • R2S2I

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    Nick Konidaris
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    Recently, with the help of postdoc Decker French we have been looking into the design of a new rapid-response spectrograph and imager. We lovingly call it R2S2I or the “Rapid Response Swope Spectrograph and Imager”. The goal of R2S2I is to be the instrument of choice for rapid followup of transient events. The instrument has…

  • Spectrograph 0th-Order Calculations

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    Nick Konidaris
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    I’m trying to make a tool that allows the user to compute anything they ever wanted to know about spectrographs. It’s here: DESIGN YOUR OWN SPECTROGRAPH: http://nickkonidaris.github.io/SpectrographCalculator/ The default parameters are for DBSP on the Hale 200-inch telescope. The parameters are listed the following format: Parameter name (variable name) [ text box with value ]…

  • Classical and β Anamorphism in Spectrographs

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    Nick Konidaris
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    The anamorphic factor is something that must be understood and manipulated in spectrographs operating off Littrow. I describe the anamorphic factor through a series of videos.

  • New code repository

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    Nick Konidaris
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    I’ve started a new github repository for the SED Machine control. The code is a series of python servers that communicate via XML RPC. A second “Konidaris python” repository was created. The KPY repository includes tools for atmospheric absorption, mirror reflectivity, centroids, function fitting, SED Machine, and zemax-python bridge via PyZDDE.

  • Chimera 2 first light

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    Nick Konidaris
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    Chimera 2, a new high-speed and wide-field imager for Palomar achieved first light! Gregg Hallinan is the PI, I’m proud to have performed the lens-design for this instrument, all optics are off-the-shelf, so the real challenge was the imaginative way in which the off-the-shelf optics were combined. An example Chimera 2 first light image is…

  • TMT Science Forum

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    Nick Konidaris
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    I’m attending the TMT Science forum in Tucson next week! This will be a great opportunity to talk about my work on TMT! Follow us on #tmtsf14. IRMS I gave a presentation on the observational capability and technical aspects of IRMS.

  • SPIE Astronomical Instrumentation 2014

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    Nick Konidaris
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    I’m attending the SPIE astronomical instrumentation meeting in Montreal (from June 22 – 28). This is a great time to get together with colleagues from TMT, and discuss SED Machine.

  • Canon f/2.0 200-mm ZEMAX model

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    Nick Konidaris
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    Based on Japanese Patent J2001, 253050, A, I constructed an approximate optical model for the Canon EF f/2.0L 200-mm lens. I can’t know for sure if this model matches the constructed hardware, but the model is a good starting point. Download the zemax archive file