The SpectroPhotometric Imaging for Astronomy with Kinetic Inductance Detectors (SPIAKID) is an innovative instrument that is funded through an ERC Advanced grant (n. 835087). The KIDs are superconducting detectors that can be operated in photon-counting mode and can provide information on the energy of the detected photon, as such they allow to do spectrophotometry without the use of any dispersing element or band passing filter. These detectors have been under development at Observatoire de Paris since 2016.
The goal of the SPIAKID instrument is be be deployed at the 3.5 m NTT ESO telescope, to study the Ultra Faint Dwarf galaxies of the Local Group. It shall have a field of view of 2′ side, achieved a mosaic of four detectors of 20 000 pixels each. The detectors are designed and manufactured at Observatoire de Paris.
The ERC funding will finish at the end of 2025, the delays accumulated do not allow take the instrument to the telescope in this time frame, but the instrument shall be assembled and tested in the laboratory. We are actively seeking further funding to be able to go on the sky at the horizon of 2028.
People at LIRA : P.-L. Astier, P. Bonifacio, E. Caffau, M. Dekkali, D. Dias, S. Faes ,V. Gamage, S. Masood, P. Panuzzo.
