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Many European and North American countries are developing 10-m class telescopes. These large aperture telescopes hold the promise, for the first time, of direct viewing of the processes that shape the formation of stars and galaxies. At the heart of these instruments is a wide-field spectrographic camera that operates at near infrared wavelengths. Spectroscopy requires that some part of the field of view be blocked, creating a long slit and an imaging field of view aperture at the focal plane. This is achieved using a series of sliding bars capable of creating slits within the field of view (FOV). It is desired to have multiple slits for multi-object spectroscopy and a long slit for high-resolution spectroscopy. This FOV blocking is achieved using a Configurable Slit Unit (CSU).
To achieve a spectral range beyond 1.8 m, in the near infrared, radiation from the instrument itself must be minimized by cooling it to cryogenic temperatures. Temperature stability and cycle time requirements impose stringent requirements on design and performance of the CSU.
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