Por Alexandre Cabral (Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço e Laboratório de Óptica Lasers e Sistemas – Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa).

Abstract: MOONS will be the next Multi-Object Optical and Near-infrared Spectrograph for the Very Large Telescope, able to simultaneously observe 1000 targets, feeding a bunch of optical fibres which can be placed at user-specified locations on the Nasmyth focal plane using individual robotic positioners. The sub-fields thus selected are then driven by the fibres into two identical cryogenic spectrographs mounted on the Nasmyth platform of one of the ESO VLT 8 m telescopes. Such a facility will allow a veritable host of Galactic, Extragalactic and Cosmological questions to be addressed. In this seminar we will describe the instrument and its current status of development, detailing the Portuguese contribution.

Short bio: Alexandre Pereira Cabral is a Research Assistant in the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (FCUL). He holds a PhD in Physics, a MSc in Physical Engineering - Instrumentation, Metrology and Quality and a graduation in Technological Physics, all degrees obtained at the FCUL. From 1991 to 2008 he was a researcher at INETI, the National Institute of Engineering, Technology and Innovation and in 2009, together with the Laboratory of Optics Lasers and Systems (LOLS), he was integrated in the Physics Department of FCUL. His research activity has been focused on optics, namely in the development of instrumentation for astronomy, metrology for space instrumentation and holography for security applications. Besides LOLS, he is also a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (IA) where he is currently the responsible for IA’s Instrumentation Group.