31 May 2016
INAF - Sede Centrale
Europe/Rome timezone

Scientific Rationale

WEAVE is a new wide-field spectroscopy facility proposed for the prime focus of the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope. The facility comprises a new 2 degree field of view prime focus corrector with a 1000-multiplex fiber positioner (MOS), a small number of individually deployable Integral Field Units (IFU), and a large single Integral Field Unit. The IFUs and the MOS fibers can be used to feed a dual-beam spectrograph that will provide full coverage of the majority of the visible spectrum in a single exposure at a spectral resolution of ~5000 or smaller wavelength coverage in both arms at a resolution ~20000. The instrument is expected to be on-sky by 2018, to provide spectroscopic sampling of the fainter end of the GAIA astrometric catalogue, chemical labelling of stars to V~17, and dedicated follow up of substantial numbers of sources from the medium deep LOFAR surveys. More information can be found at http://www.ing.iac.es/weave/ WEAVE represents a great opportunity for the scientific community. The aim of the meeting is to inform the Italian community focusing the discussion on the scientific return of the instrument.