HARMONI

HARMONI, or the High Angular Resolution Monolithic Optical and Near-infrared Integral field spectrograph, is one of the first-light instruments installed on the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) and will function as the telescope's workhorse instrument for spectroscopy in the wavelength range 0.47–2.45 µm. This versatile instrument will offer a set of spatial scales to optimise observations for a wide range of science programmes and observing conditions. In particular, HARMONI will be optimised to exploit the best image quality delivered from a post-focal laser tomographic adaptive optics module.

HARMONI is an integral field spectrograph, which can operate in a number of different ways. The design of the instrument is such that it will be easy to calibrate and operate, providing the ELT with a "point-and-shoot" spectroscopic instrument.

Thanks to the enormous 39-metre main mirror of the ELT, HARMONI will be used to explore galaxies in the early Universe, study the constituents of the local Universe and and characterise exoplanets in great detail. In many ways, it will be complementary to ALMA and the James Webb Space Telescope. HARMONI follows in the footsteps of the innovative second-generation VLT instruments like MUSE and SPHERE on the VLT.