The Wide Field Optical Spectrometer (WFOS) is a first light instrument for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). The WFOS Partnership invites contributions from China to the instrument science program and to the instrument design and build. The WFOS management, technical and science leadership team will visit China in October. We invite you to join us for a one-day meeting (Oct. 16, A601, NAOC), to present your areas of scientific interest and to discuss how you can contribute technically to WFOS.

While the TMT site selection is ongoing, the WFOS development continues to progress towards first light a decade from now. We have begun the first stage of the WFOS conceptual design, to perform a trade study between two very different instrument designs: a slicer concept, and a fiber based instrument concept.  In March 2018, we will select one of these two concepts for WFOS.

The second stage of WFOS conceptual design will optimize and prototype the opto-mechanical design, fiber or slicer concepts, cameras, dispersive architecture, large refractive gratings, dichroics, robotics systems, and details of detector design. This will be followed by a 2-year preliminary design phase, then final design, fabrication and integration and test phases, prior to fielding and commissioning on the telescope.

We would like to meet teams who have interest in the science goals of WFOS, and who wish to contribute technically to WFOS by helping in the optimization work during the second stage of conceptual design, and through the remaining design, fabrication, integration and commissioning of WFOS. 

We look forward to meeting your teams and holding productive discussions towards a future collaboration.