WIRCam: the infrared wide-field camera for the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope

Pascal Puget; Eric Stadler; Rene Doyon; Pierre Gigan; Simon Thibault; Gerard Luppino; Gregory Barrick; Tom Benedict; Thierry Forveille; William Rambold; James Thomas; Tom Vermeulen; Jeff Ward; Jean-Luc Beuzit; Philippe Feautrier; Yves Magnard; Guillaume Mella; Olivier Preis; Philippe Vallee; Shiang-yu Wang; Chueh-Jen Lin; Donald N.B. Hall; Klaus W. Hodapp

doi:10.1117/12.551097

30 September 2004 WIRCam: the infrared wide-field camera for the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope

Pascal Puget, Eric Stadler, Rene Doyon, Pierre Gigan, Simon Thibault, Gerard Luppino, Gregory Barrick, Tom Benedict, Thierry Forveille, William Rambold, James Thomas, Tom Vermeulen, Jeff Ward, Jean-Luc Beuzit, Philippe Feautrier, Yves Magnard, Guillaume Mella, Olivier Preis, Philippe Vallee, Shiang-yu Wang, Chueh-Jen Lin, Donald N.B. Hall, Klaus W. Hodapp

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 5492, Ground-based Instrumentation for Astronomy; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.551097
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2004, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Abstract

WIRCam (Wide-field InfraRed Camera) is a near-infrared (0.9-2.4 microns) camera developed for the prime focus of the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), a 3.6-m telescope located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. WIRCam is based on 4 x 2048x2048 HAWAII2RG arrays, developed by Rockwell. The camera provides a 0.3"/pixel sampling, and the close packaging of the detectors allows to cover an almost contiguous field-of-view of 20.5' x 20.5'. All optical elements are assembled in a cryovessel and cooled down to 85K by a He closed cycle cryogenerator. The two filter wheels have capacity for 8 filters (110 mm in diameter), cooled at low temperature together with the Lyot stop. These wheels are mounted on sapphire ball bearings and powered by external motors. Passive spring indexers define their positioning. A fused-silica tip/tilt plate powered by voice coil type motors provides image stabilization in front of the cryovessel. It compensates for flexures as well as for low frequency telescope oscillations from wind shake. This paper describes the overall architecture of the camera, giving the optical estimated performances and details some specific points of the design such as filter wheels, thermal connections, etc.

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Pascal Puget, Eric Stadler, Rene Doyon, Pierre Gigan, Simon Thibault, Gerard Luppino, Gregory Barrick, Tom Benedict, Thierry Forveille, William Rambold, James Thomas, Tom Vermeulen, Jeff Ward, Jean-Luc Beuzit, Philippe Feautrier, Yves Magnard, Guillaume Mella, Olivier Preis, Philippe Vallee, Shiang-yu Wang, Chueh-Jen Lin, Donald N.B. Hall, and Klaus W. Hodapp "WIRCam: the infrared wide-field camera for the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope", Proc. SPIE 5492, Ground-based Instrumentation for Astronomy, (30 September 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.551097

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