SpecTel: A 10-12 meter class Spectroscopic Survey Telescope

Understand

We recommend a conceptual design study for a spectroscopic facility in the southern hemisphere comprising a large diameter telescope, fiber system, and spectrographs collectively optimized for massively-multiplexed spectroscopy.

• As a baseline, we propose an 11.4-meter aperture, optical spectroscopic survey telescope with a five square degree field of view.
• Using current technologies, the facility could be equipped with 15,000 robotically-controlled fibers feeding spectrographs over 360<lambda<1330 nm with options for fiber-fed spectrographs at high resolution and a panoramic IFU at a separate focus.
• This would enable transformational progress via its ability to access a larger fraction of objects from Gaia, LSST, Euclid, and WFIRST than any currently funded or planned spectroscopic facility.