Final Design and On-Sky Testing of the iLocater SX Acquisition Camera: Broadband Single-Mode Fiber Coupling
Jonathan Crass, Andrew Bechter, Brian Sands, David L. King, Ryan, Ketterer, Matthew Engstrom, Randall Hamper, Derek Kopon, James Smous, Justin, R. Crepp, Manny Montoya, Oli Durney, David Cavalieri, Robert Reynolds,, Michael Vansickle, Eleanya Onuma, Joseph Thomes, Scott Mullin

TL;DR
This paper details the design, construction, and successful on-sky testing of a broadband single-mode fiber injection system for the iLocater spectrograph on the LBT, demonstrating high coupling efficiency and advancing ground-based fiber-fed astronomical instruments.
Contribution
It presents the first on-sky demonstration of broadband single-mode fiber coupling for an astronomical spectrograph, showcasing a significant milestone in instrument development.
Findings
Achieved over 35% fiber coupling efficiency in the near-infrared
Successfully demonstrated on-sky performance across various conditions
Validated the instrument's design and operational capabilities
Abstract
Enabling efficient injection of light into single-mode fibers (SMFs) is a key requirement in realizing diffraction-limited astronomical spectroscopy on ground-based telescopes. SMF-fed spectrographs, facilitated by the use of adaptive optics (AO), offer distinct advantages over comparable seeing-limited designs, including higher spectral resolution within a compact and stable instrument volume, and a telescope independent spectrograph design. iLocater is an extremely precise radial velocity (EPRV) spectrograph being built for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). We have designed and built the front-end fiber injection system, or acquisition camera, for the SX (left) primary mirror of the LBT. The instrument was installed in 2019 and underwent on-sky commissioning and performance assessment. In this paper, we present the instrument requirements, acquisition camera design, as well as…
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