Commissioning and on-sky performance verification of iLocater
Abstract
iLocater is a high-resolution near-infrared extreme precision radial velocity (EPRV) spectrograph that was deployed to the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in June 2026. iLocater operates over nm with a median resolving power of as measured in the laboratory. We present the commissioning and initial on-sky verification program using solar and night-time observations at the LBT. First light was achieved on 27 June 2026, and nearly 150 on-sky spectra have now been recorded. Observations include single stars ranging in spectral type from B5 to M6. iLocater uses the LBT AO system, and we have demonstrated its ability to obtain spatially resolved spectra of close () binary stars.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.27332,
title = {Commissioning and on-sky performance verification of iLocater},
author = {Marshall C. Johnson and Marcelo Tala Pinto and Jonathan Crass and Brian Sands and Jackson Datkuliak and Sai Vidyud Senthil Nathan and Justin R. Crepp and Michael Engelman and Daniel Pappalardo and Julia Brady and Mark Derwent and Xavier Lesley-Saldaña and Andrew Bechter and Eric Bechter and Christian Schwab and David Aikens and Chad Bender and Chris Brandon and Cynthia Brooks and Matheus J. Castro and Jeffrey Chilcote and Al Conrad and Gregory Delo and Erin Duell and Matthew Engstrom and Steve Ertel and Louis Fantano and John Keith Feggans and Hali Flores and B. Scott Gaudi and David King and Ondrej Kitzler and Kaitlin M. Kratter and Jeffrey Kruk and Thomas Legero and Stanimir Letchev and Jerry Mason and Joaquin Mason and Matthew Misch and Jacob Pember and Richard Pogge and Andreas Quirrenbach and Joshua Schlieder and Augustyn Waczynski and Joseph Shields and Daewook Kim and Mark Smithwright and Allie Renshaw and Austin Richie and Alexa Rizika and Nandini Sadagopan and Jonathan Shover and James Smous and Jayde Spiegel and Julian Stürmer and Sahil Sura and Robert Switzer and Joe Thomes and Ji Wang and Lauren Weiss and Daniel Wilson and Dane Zielinski-Nicolson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.27332},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
Submitted to SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2026, Paper 14149-195. 12 figures, 4 pages