The fully calibrated Euclid will ultimately observe billions of galaxies to create the biggest ever 3D map of the sky.”Ĭarole Mundell, ESA’s Director of Science agrees: “Our teams have worked tirelessly since the launch of Euclid on 1 July and these first engineering images give a tantalising glimpse of the remarkable data we can expect from Euclid.” This ‘First Light’ moment is very special as it is the time when all scientists, engineers, and technicians involved in making Euclid finally know that more than a decade of planning, designing, and constructing has paid off.ĮSA’s Euclid project manager Giuseppe Racca: “After more than 11 years of designing and developing Euclid, it’s exhilarating and enormously emotional to see these first images, it’s even more incredible when we think that we see just a few galaxies here, produced with minimum system tuning. Euclid will observe 1 million of these 7×7 arcminute² areas over the course of its survey in the coming 6 years! With much longer integration times than these first light engineering images. To put these images in perspective: each of these high-resolution cutouts shows an area of 7×7 arcminutes², which is 1/14th of the area of the moon on the sky (the full detector focal plane area is 2.5x the moon area in one image). The full focal plane of NISP consisting of 16 detectors is shown on the left, and part of one detector in higher resolution on the right.Ĭredits: © ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO This has now changed! After more than a week of alignment, and focus finding of the secondary mirror M2, as well as using initial guiding of the spacecraft to point at a constant commanded point on the sky, both VIS and NISP managed to record their first engineering images, with all systems functioning, and the telescope in focus: Euclid sees ‘First Light’.Įuclid early commissioning test images, showing an image by the NISP instrument (near-infrared light). The initial images received light through an unfocussed telescope, and a spacecraft without controlled guiding of its pointing. After the first days, the instrument team switched on the detector systems of both the visible imager (VIS) as well as the near-infrared spectrometer and photometer (NISP). Following a ‘bakeout phase’ where Euclid was turned more towards the Sun than during later survey operations, to get rid of residual water moisture trapped inside, the whole spacecraft has been cooling down to operational temperatures. The electronics of both instruments were turned on already on day 2 to monitor the temperature of each component. Since the initial acquisition of Euclid’s communication signal 45 minutes after launch, and an early checkout and orbit correction manœuvre, a team of ESA, industry, and Euclid Consortium instrument specialists have tirelessly worked through a long, pre-planned list of steps. In the current phase of commissioning, all aspects of the Euclid mission – spacecraft, instruments, and now telescope – have successfully passed crucial milestones. The Euclid satellite spacecraft is now officially an observatory: Euclid’s two instruments are seeing ‘First Light’ – recording the first engineering observations of the sky with a fully aligned and focussed telescope.
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