Project Milestones and Team Members

Project Milestones:

March 2003 Early standalone observations with the SPIFFI instrument and the small 1kx1k Hawaii detector.
May 31, 2004 First light of the SINFONI AO module with the infrared test camera.
July 9, 2004 First light with the integrated SINFONI instrument using the AO module together with the SPIFFI integral field spectrograph, equipped with an engineering grade 2kx2k Hawaii 2RD detector.
February 17, 2005 First light with the science grade detector
April 1, 2005 Start of science operations

Following the links you will find information about the SINFONI Science Verification and Guarantee Time Observation projects. Some early results obtained from the SINFONI commissioning observations are presented in the ESO Messenger 117 and in the press release about the first light observations of SINFONI.

Instrument Operation Team

The instrument operation team has been formed in August 2004 to provide user support in all phases of the end to end VLT data flow operation of SINFONI: From the proposal to the data delivery.

Paranal P. Amico, R. Castillo, C. Dumas (instrument scientist), G. Gillet, C. Lidman, R. Schmutzer
Garching M. Kissler-Patig, S. Mengel, A. Modigliani, M. Neeser, L. Tacconi-Garman, M. Van den Ancker, J. Vinther

Instrument Development and Commissioning Teams

SPIFFI F. Eisenhauer (PI), R. Abuter, M. Horrobin, A. Gilbert, R. Genzel, H. Gemperlein, P. Feldmeier, A. Goldbrunner, S. Huber, W. Lieb (Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Garching), K. Bickert, C. Iserlohe, C. Röhrle, A. Schegerer, J. Schreiber, M. Tecza, N. Thatte (former members of the MPE team), G. Finger, M. Hartung (ESO - IR detectors), A. Brown, E. Elswijk, R. ter Horst, J. Kragt, G. Kroes, J. Pragt, T. Schoenmaker, P. van der Werf (NOVA - SINFONI-2K)
SINFONI AO H. Bonnet (project management), S. Ströbele, M. Kissler-Patig (instrument scientist), R. Conselmann, B. Delabre, R. Donaldson, E. Fedrigo, J. Brynnel, F. Biancat-Marchet, S. Tordo, F. Gonte, J.-L. Lizon, J. Lieske, J. Reunanen (ESO Garching)

Old News

  • February 28, 2005: A new science grade Hawaii 2RD detector was installed. SINFONI with the new detector was back on the Cassegrain focus of UT4 (Yepun) on February 16, 2005. Since then the instrument was recommissioned and found ready for science operation. Science operations will start in March with an extensive guarantied time observation run. Preliminary performance data of the detector are available on the instrument page.
  • January 5, 2005: Updated data for the AO instrument performance.
  • January 5, 2005: Updated user manual for period 75 service and visitor mode observation runs.
  • November 23, 2004: Updated user manual for Science Verification and GTO observations
  • October 21, 2004: Please find here links to the SINFONI Science Verfication page and the Guarantied Time Observation projects.
  • October 21, 2004: Some early results of the SINFONI commissioning observations are presented in the ESO Messenger 117
  • September 2, 2004: Target lists for the SINFONI Science Verification Programs
  • September 1, 2004: all SINFONI pages were restructured for the call for proposals.
  • August 24, 2004: SINFONI first light press release