MUSE splitting and relay optics: a fan-shaped bridge for 24 spectrographs

The Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) is a second generation instrument in development for the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The MUSE splitting and relay optics splits the corresponding telescope 1'x1' adaptive optics corrected field of view into 24 sub-fields and feeds each sub-field into a spectrograph. The design of the field splitter and separator unit and the performance of its prototype are described in detail in this paper. The relay optics builds a 24-channel fan-shaped bridge between the sub-fields and the corresponding spectrographs. An overview of the alignment procedure is given.