MFOSC-P presents a novel design and cost-effective way to develop a FOSC (Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera) type of instrument on a shorter time-scale of development. Its design and development methodology are, in particular, suitable for the small aperture telescopes. The design and other characterization aspects of MFOSC-P are discussed in the following reference:
“Design and development of Mt.Abu faint object spectrograph and camera – Pathfinder (MFOSC-P) for PRL 1.2m Mt. Abu Telescope”,
Srivastava et al., 2021, Experimental Astronomy, volume 51, pages345–382"
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10686-021-09753-5
Figure 1: Figure shows the line profiles for Xenon and Neon spectral calibration lamps for all the three spectroscopy modes of MFOSC-P for 75 microns slit (~1 arc-second on the sky). The central zero wavelength corresponds to Xenon lamp’s 7119 angstrom line using R500 (150 lp/mm) grating (Dots), Xenon lamp’s 5028 angstrom line using R1000 (300 lp/mm) grating (stars), and Neon lamp’s 6506 angstrom line using R2000 (500 lp/mm) grating (triangles). Gaussian fits to these lines result in ∼3 pixels FWHMs which correspond to 10.9, 5.7 and 3.2 angstroms respectively for R500, R1000, and R2000 modes respectively. Figure is reproduced from Srivastava et al., 2021, Experimental Astronomy, volume 51, pages345–382.
Figure 2: Spectra of a symbiotic system - T CrB as obtained from MFOSC-P from its three spectroscopy modes for varying resolutions and spectral ranges.
Figure 3: Comparison of simulated Signal to noise ratio (SNR) from MFOSC-P spectra with observed data. The model assumes 2.0 arc-seconds FWHM seeing and 1.0 arc-second slit width. Figure is reproduced from Srivastava et al., 2021, Experimental Astronomy, volume 51, pages345–382.
Figure 4: V band Image of a region of M21 Open Cluster from MFOSC-P. A source of V magnitude ∼15.74 (encircled) is observed with an error of 0.15 magnitude (SNR∼7.3) in 40 seconds of integration time. Figure is reproduced from Srivastava et al., 2021, Experimental Astronomy, volume 51, pages345–382.