Description
The Wide-field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST) is a proposed new large telescope dedicated to spectroscopic surveys and integral field spectroscopy. WST is being designed to meet the future need for large scale surveys for a variety of science cases including cosmology, extra-galactic, galactic, and time-domain science.
The WST concept is a 12 m aperture telescope with simultaneous operation of an integral field spectrograph (IFS) and a wide-field multiple object spectrograph (MOS). The IFS will provide a large field of view of 3 arcminutes by 3 arcminutes whilst the MOS will provide high-multiplex of 20,000 over a 3 square degrees field of view. The MOS is expected to provide 50 million spectra per year at low resolution and 2 million at high spectral resolution.
A three year concept study, funded by the EU Horizon programme (project ID 101183153) is currently underway, with the aim of preparing WST as the next transformational astronomical facility to answer the ESO call "Expanding Horizons".
This talk will provide an overview of the WST, the science goals, and the status of the conceptual design. The talk will describe the new technology being investigated for WST including the innovative telescope layout, new spectrograph designs, curved detectors, calibration systems and optical fibre switches.
