International Center for Astronomical, Medical and Ecological Research
   
 MMCS - Multi Mode Cassegrain Spectrometer
 MMCS was designed for spectral observations of faint objects at the Cassegrain focus (F/8) of the telescope ZEISS-2000. It has a modular design which allows quick transformation from its echelle to prism mode. Thus the spectrometer has wide range of resolutions from 100 to 15000 and spectral range 3700 - 8000 Å

  BASIC COMPONENTS.
  • collimator is a parabolic mirror with diameter of 75 mm and focal length 600 mm;
  • specially made (with central hole) echelle grating with 75 gr mm-1 and 63.° 5 blaze angle;
  • diffraction grating with 600 gr mm-1 and 8° blaze angle;
  • diffraction grating with 300 gr mm-1 and 4° blaze angle;
  • diffraction grating with 300 gr mm-1 and 6° blaze angle;
  • diffraction grating with 200 gr mm-1 and 28° blaze angle;
  • a 45° crown prism;
  • camera Schmidth-Cassegrain with F=150 mm;
  • lens camera with the F=180 mm;
  • detectors:
  • Wright Instruments CCD, 1242x1152 with 22.5 mk pixel;
    Wright Instruments CCD (back-illuminated), 1252x1152 with 22.5 mk pixel.

Observational Capabilities

Modes echelle (64°+4°) quasi echelle
28°+prism
classic 8°-grating classic 4°-grating
Max. Resolution 13500 3200 1200 600
Limiting Mag.,
S/N~10, Exp=1h
~12.5 ~14.5 ~15 ~16



MMCS


Echelle grating


Raw echelle image R ~13000


Raw image (quasi echelle) R ~3200


Spectrum with R ~13000




Telescopes & Equipment
 2m RCC Telescope produced by Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH (Germany)
 Large Horizontal Solar Telescope  
 Zeiss-600 Telescope
 MAESTRO -
 MAtrix Echelle SpecTROgraph
 MMCS -
 Multi Mode Cassegrain
Spectrometer
 TUVES-
 Terskol Ultra Violet Echelle Spectrometer
Some of the observatory activities
 Spectral investigations of interstellar clouds, solar analogs, X-ray binary stars, etc.
 Orbit calculation and monitoring of geosynchronous satellites
 Simultaneous observations with the Synchronous Network of Optical Telescopes to study microvariability of stars
  Study of gas and dust in comets
 Atmospheric studies