We describe the design, development, and performance of HAWK-I, the new High-Acuity Wide-field K-band Imager for ESO's Very Large Telescope, which is equipped with a mosaic of four 2 k × 2 k arrays and operates from 0.9−2.4 μm over 7.5 × 7.5 with 0.1 pixels. A novel feature is the use of all reflective optics that, together with filters of excellent throughput and detectors of high quantum efficiency, has yielded an extremely high throughput. Commissioning and science verification observations have already delivered a variety of excellent and deep images that demonstrate its high scientific potential for addressing important astrophysical questions of current interest.

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FLAMES is a fibre facility to be installed on the A platform of the VLT Kueyen telescope, which can feed up to three spectrographs with fibres positioned over a corrected 25 arcminutes Field of View. The initial configuration will include connections to the GIRAFFE and to the red arm of the UVES spectrographs, the latter, located on the Nasmyth B platform of the same telescope, is already in operation as a long slit stand alone instrument.1 The 8 fibres to UVES will give R'.-45OOO and a large spectral coverage (200 nm), while GIRAFFE will be fed by 132 single fibres (MEDUSA), or by 15 deployable integral field units (IFUs) or by one central large integral unit (ARGUS). GIRAFFE will be equipped with two gratings, giving R=5000-9000 and R=15000-25000 respectively. It will be possible to obtain GIRAFFE and UVES observations simultaneously. Special attention is paid to optimizing night operations and to providing appropriate data reduction.The instrument is rather complex and it is now in the construction phase; in addition to ESO, its realization has required the collaboration of several institutes grouped in 4 consortia.

HAWK-I (High Acuity, Wide field K-band Imaging) is a 0.9 µm -2.5 µm wide field near infrared imager designed to sample the best images delivered over a large field of 7.5 arcmin x 7.5 arcmin. HAWK-I is a cryogenic instrument to be installed on one of the Very Large Telescope Nasmyth foci. It employs a catadioptric design and the focal plane is equipped with a mosaic of four HAWAII 2 RG arrays. Two filter wheels allow to insert broad band and narrow band filters. The instrument is designed to remain compatible with an adaptive secondary system under study for the VLT.

FLAMES is the VLT Fibre Facility, installed and being commissioned at the Nasmyth A of UT2 (Kueyen Telescope). FLAMES has been built and assembled at the VLT telescope in about 4 years through an international collaboration between 10 institutes in 6 countries and 3 continents. It had first light with the fibre link to the red arm of UVES on April 1, and with the GIRAFFE spectrograph on July 3. We have not yet enough data to compare the observed vs. expected astronomical performances, although these first data are encouraging in many respects. We aim at proceeding soon with the remaining tests. Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 06/24/2016 Terms of Use: http://spiedigitallibrary.org/ss/TermsOfUse.aspx Proc. of SPIE Vol. 4841 1683 Downloaded From: http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/ on 06/24/2016 Terms of Use: http://spiedigitallibrary.org/ss/TermsOfUse.aspx