Milton Roy produces high-resolution grating for European Southern Observatory

Milton Roy produces high-resolution grating for European Southern Observatory

The Richardson Grating Laboratory of Milton Roy Co. (Rochester, NY) recently shipped a specialized optical grating to the European International Organization for Astronomical Research (Munich, Germany), the first of two intended for use in the European Southern Observatory (ESO, Chile). The oversized (840 mm long) echelle mosaic grating involved the integration of two smaller grating modules on a single Zerodur substrate. It will be one of two dispersing elements in the ultraviolet/visible light spectrograph for the array of four 8-m telescopes that constitutes the ESO. The completed grating will be installed in the "arm" of the spectrograph operating in the red spectral region; the second grating will be installed in the spectrograph arm optimized for the blue region. The observatory is expected to be in operation by 1997.