The Infrared Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) for TMT: instrument overview

IRIS is a diffraction limited instrument designed for first light of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). It combines a nearinfrared integral field spectrograph (lenslet array and mirror slicer) and a wide-field imager with platescales as small as 4 mas. The project is nearing the end of its final design phase and will soon be ready for fabrication. Our team has created a wide variety of prototypes and design solutions for this advanced instrument. While many challenges like atmospheric dispersion correction and saturation are particularly acute due to the telescope diameter, many others arise from the large format detector arrays and wide range of science goals. We’ll present the overall design, results from our prototyping activities and discuss the astrophysical opportunities.