The project of IMaging Spectrograph (IMSP) for the large aperture telescope, undertaken by Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics & Technology (NIAOT), has completed the lab acceptance at Nanjing on January 21, 2022. It is expected to get the first light by June, 2022.

The IMSP is a new and versatile instrument for the large aperture telescope with the capability of three-color simultaneous imaging and low-medium resolution spectrograph. The main science goals of the IMSP are the study of time-domain astronomy and compact objects survey in the Milky Way to address issues in the fundamental physics of extreme of physics, the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs), understanding the nature of supernovae (SNe) and finding the origin or physics correlation of different transients.

The special feature of IMSP is the multimode operation modes and high efficiency. Direct imaging mode is designed to work in a synchronous multi-color bands covering from 360 nm to J band using two dichroic mirrors with a 3'x3' field of view (FOV). Long-slit spectrograph mode supports two spectral resolutions operation modes (R=1000 & 5000) via different combination of Volume Phase Holographic Prisms to cover the whole spectrum in visible.

IMSP Review Group visit the lab