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At blue wavelengths, MOSAIC will be able to get a spectrum of a V = 25 mag galaxy with S/N ~ 5 (resolution R=5000) in a ~ 4 hour exposure with the HMM-VIS mode. |
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Simulations
Detailed simulations have been performed to assess the performance of the blue part of the visible spectrograph. To this end, we used the WEBSIM-COMPASS simulator. Our study aimed to understand the behavior of noise, the effects of sky variability, and the scaling between signal-to-noise (S/N) and several other observational (exposure time) and instrumental (resolution R, throughput T%) characteristics. Briefly, an astrophysical target was modeled as a high-resolution data cube, which was subsequently convolved with the point-spread function (PSF) that represented the optical path through the atmosphere and the telescope, including the adaptive optics system. Realistic sky background, photon noise, and detector noise were added. The simulator produced a data cube which we analyzed as if it were real data.
Read more: Performance of MOSAIC in the blue