FORS2 Rotating Flat Field Systematics Fixed -- Recent Exchange of FORS LADC Prisms Improves the Long-known Flat-fielding Problem

Abstract

For many years the FORS2 instrument has suffered from artefacts in the flat fields caused by surface inhomogeneities on the longitudinal atmospheric dispersion corrector (LADC) that affected high-precision photometric and spectroscopic measurements. Recently, the FORS LADC prisms were exchanged, and our analysis of a large number of flat fields shows that this exchange has resulted in a significant decrease in the level of small-scale artefacts.