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In the first part of my talk, I will discuss the instrumentation work done on TIFR Near Infrared Spectrometer and Imager (TIRSPEC), a 1024 x 1024 Hawaii-1 PACE array recently mounted on the 2 meter Himalayan Chandra Telescope at Hanle, Ladakh (4,500m absl). The instrument was developed in collaboration with MKIR, Hawaii, and has an operating wavelength range of 1 - 2.5 microns. It is capable of both imaging (photometric broad and narrow bands) and grism spectroscopy (resolution ~ 1200). The 0.3 arcsec pixel scale provides a field-of-view of ~5 arcmin x 5 arcmin. I will give an overview of the assembly, debugging challenges, optimisations, instrument calibrations and the development of the data reduction pipeline.
In the second part of the talk, I will discuss about the science I did with TIRSPEC and three other optical and near infrared instruments. I will concentrate on the peculiar young low mass source (IRAS 06068-0641) which went from an outburst to quiescent phase and back again to the outburst phase on timescales never seen before. Spectroscopic observations of this object revealed the evolution of outflows etc during active and quiescent phases of the outburst.
I will conclude the talk with a short summary of the versatile science which can be done with TIRSPEC, and the immense use it could be of to the Indian astronomical community.
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