LonGSp: The Gornergrat longslit infrared spectrometer

We present a near-infrared cooled grating spectrometer that has been developed at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory for the 1.5 m Infrared Telescope at Gornergrat (TIRGO). The spectrometer is equipped with cooled reflective optics and a grating in Littrow configuration. The detector is an engineering grade Rockwell NICMOS3 array ( pixels of ). The scale on the focal plane is 1.73 arcsec/pixel and the field of view along the slit is 70 arcsec. The accessible spectral range is with a dispersion, at first order, of about 11.5 A/pixel. This paper presents a complete description of the instrument, including its optics and cryo-mechanical system, along with astronomical results from test observations, started in 1994. Since January 1996, LonGSp is offered to TIRGO users and employed in several Galactic and extragalactic programs.