Installation and commissioning of FLAMES, the VLT Multifibre Facility
Résumé
FLAMES (Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph) is the VLT Fibre Facility, installed and commissioned at the Nasmyth A focus of UT2 (Kueyen Telescope). FLAMES was built and assembled in about four years through an international collaboration between ten institutes in six countries and three 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 report here on the complex process of integration and commissioning, and we compare the expected and observed astronomical requirements.