ANTARCTIC FIBER OPTIC SPECTROMETER

The Antarctic Fiber Optic Spectrometer (AFOS) is one of a suite of ins truments of the Automated Astrophysical Site Testing Observatory (AAST O) installed at the South Pole in 1996 December. In 1998, the AFOS wil l be attached to an altitude-azimuth mount and commence regular astron omical observations. In the years 1998-2000, the AASTO will be moved t o other remote locations, high on the Antarctic plateau, in order to c omplete the site testing campaign. The AFOS experiment consists of a 3 0 cm Newtonian telescope injecting light into a 45 m length of optical fibers that feed a UV-visible (200-840 nm) grating spectrograph insid e the warm shelter. Tn this paper we describe the instrument and the f irst results. The main requirement of the design was reliable operatio n In an extremely cold environment, without maintenance, for 12 months . This has been achieved despite the very low power (approximately 7 W ) available to run the instrument.