Student mobility - Nicolas' wanderings in Brazil

From March 11, 2023 to September 3, 2023

Nicolas Héricher chose to do his internship in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Nicolas, student engineer at Institut d'Optique Graduate School (IOGS) and 2nd year student in the AIMA master degree, travelled to Brazil to do his master thesis. He has joined the teams of the Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences, IAG) of the University of São Paulo (USP). He also works with the teams at the National Laboratory of Astrophysics in Itajubá.

He is working on 2 projects, related to spectographers:

CUBES, which will be installed on the VLT in Chile: he will beworking on the calibration units of the spectrograph, including system optimisation, tolerancing and engineering design
ECHARPE, which will be installed on an observatory in Brazil at the Observatório Pico Dos Dias: he will work on the alignment plan of the spectrograph

At IOGS, we are taught to understand how imaging systems work. What I find satisfying is that I understand the systems I am working on without having had a specific course on them before. By taking a few days to look at the design of the system, you end up understanding how it works and the constraints on it. I'm really in the application area I was looking to get into when I left school.