The Future: the VIRMOS Project (quick overview)
France-Italy collaboration (Marseille, Bologna, Haute-Provence, Milano, Naples, Toulouse - PI’s O. Lefevre & P. Vettolani), to build two multi-object spectrographs for the ESO VLT
VIMOS: 0.37-1 m, first light mid-2000 on UT3
NIRMOS 1-2 m, first light mid-2001 on UT4
Science drive: the VIRMOS Deep Survey, aimed at studying evolution of galaxies and large-scale structure to zɭ through:
- 70+50 nights of guaranteed time over ~3-4 years
- 100,000 redshifts to IABឆ over an area of ~20 sq.deg., 0<zə.3
- 50,000 redshifts 22<IABឈ over an area of ~2 sq.deg., 0<zɝ
- ~1000 redshifts to IAB~26 over a 1x1 sq.arcmin area using a Integral Field Spectroscopy unit (6400 fibres)
Ongoing preparatory work: UBVRIK photometric surveys at CFHT, ESO, CTIO.