UNIDIA
Engineering and Instrumental Developments Unit for Astrophysics
From instrumental design to the exploitation of observables
Flash News
MOONS Fibre Connections
After a journey of over 11,000 km that took him to Chile, to the ESO site at Paranal, a team comprising members of UNIDIA and the ATC (UK) joined him to carry out the final installations.
At an altitude of 2,700 metres, in cool temperatures (southern hemisphere winter), this team set about a few weeks ago connecting the 1,024 fibre-optic links that capture light at the telescope’s focal plane and feed it into the spectrograph.
The DRS (Data Reduction System) team – responsible for the software that will process the data from the detectors – will now take over in September to check that the entire instrument is functioning correctly.
MOONS, a state-of-the-art spectrograph built by a consortium of six countries (the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Portugal, Switzerland and Chile, as well as ESO), will set sail to unlock the secrets of the Universe. Built by an international consortium led by UK ATC at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, and comprising six countries, MOONS represents a major milestone for French science and engineering, notably through the acquisition of brand-new expertise in the use of fibres in cryogenic environments, for which France was responsible. UK ATC led the project, which has been supported from the outset by the CNRS-INSU and the Paris Observatory-PSL. Within the consortium, France was responsible for the fibre link, the slit environment, the shutter and the data reduction pipeline.
Its unique capabilities will enable astronomers to study millions of stars and galaxies, providing unprecedented data for investigating the formation and evolution of galaxies and the structure of our own Milky Way, thereby helping to answer some of astronomy’s biggest questions.
Contacts:
Hector FLORES, French Co-Principal Investigator for the project, LUX, Paris Observatory-PSL, CNRS, hector.flores@obspm.fr
Isabelle GUINOUARD, French Project Manager, UNIDIA, Paris Observatory-PSL, CNRS, isabelle.guinouard@obspm.fr
Frédéric ROYER, DRS Manager, LIRA, Paris Observatory-PSL, CNRS, frederic.royer@obspm.fr
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Introducing UNIDIA
UNIDIA is a scientific and technical support service of the Observatoire de Paris-PSL and the CNRS. Its shared nature enables it to work on the biggest instrumental projects of the Paris Observatory laboratories, designed to prepare for the astrophysics of the future.
We are organized into a quality/product assurance department and three technical divisions. The first is dedicated to all mechanical stages, from design to assembly and testing of parts manufactured in our workshop. The second covers all areas of instrument development, and the third is dedicated to software engineering.
These divisions design innovative hardware and software solutions for astrophysical instrumentation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum (from radio to very high energies). We have the technical expertise to collect light, transport it via thousands of optical fibers and inject it into spectrographic slits. With our scientific, statistical and IT expertise, we also master the entire chain of collecting and analyzing massive data, within the framework of DRS (Data Reduction Software), also known as "pipelines".
Thanks to our cutting-edge know-how, our instruments are capable of observing thousands of objects every night with unrivalled precision, providing scientists with a wealth of accurate information for the first time. A case in point is the Gaia instrument, for which one of our technical divisions plays a major role, being responsible for processing spectroscopic data and multiple stars.
These instrumental and software performances are revolutionizing the way we see the Universe as a whole, and helping to answer questions that have remained unanswered for decades, such as the origin of dark matter or the structure of our Galaxy.
As part of our training activities, we contribute to the teaching provided in the Master’s courses at the Observatoire de Paris-PSL, and every year we welcome trainees and apprentices of all levels to help them discover our exciting professions. UNIDIA is at the cutting edge of instrumental and computing know-how dedicated to astrophysics, and offers many opportunities for those who wish to contribute to the future of astrophysics.
