TIRCAM: A mid-IR camera for astronomical imaging

We present the main characteristics of a new mid-IR camera, TIRCAM, operating at the 1.5 m Italian Infrared Telescope.     

First experiences with ARNICA,the Arcetri observatory imaging camera

ARNICA (ARcetri Near Infrared CAmera) is the imaging camera for the near infrared bands between 1.0 and 2.5 m that Arcetri Observatory has designed and built as a common use instrument for the TIRGO telescope (1.5 m diameter, f/20) located at Gornergrat (Switzerland). The scale is 1 per pixel, with sky coverage of more than 4×4 on the NICMOS 3 (256×256 pixels, 40 m side) detector array. The optical path is compact enough to be enclosed in a25.4 cm diameter dewar; the working temperature of detector and optics is 76 K. We give an estimate of performance, in terms of sensitivity with an assigned observing time, along with some preliminary considerations on photometric accuracy.     

A design for digital signal processing in a large field radio patrol camera

An FFT processor is being developed for the present pilot system of the large field radio patrol camera. A design of the processor is discussed.Paper presented at the IAU Third Asian-Pacific Regional Meeting, held in Kyoto, Japan, between 30 September–6 October, 1984.     

一种新的10米光学/红外望远镜

结合中国的实际情况提出了一 新的中国２１世纪的１０米光学／红外望远镜的方案,它是属于一种非常规概念设计的望远镜。这种新的大望远镜方案吸收了或主要参考了Ａｒｅｃｉｂｏ射电望远镜、美国的ＨｏｂｂｙＥｂｅｒｌｙ９米望远镜和ＬＡＭＯＳＴ方案的前身一光谱巡天望远镜方案。它的主镜是六角形子镜拼成的球面,在观测过程中主镜不动,由焦面的改正镜做跟踪,造价约为同样口径的常规设计望远镜的五分之一,并能满足绝大部分天文     

A method and results of color calibration for the Chang'e-3 terrain camera and panoramic camera

The terrain camera(TCAM) and panoramic camera(PCAM) are two of the major scientific payloads installed on the lander and rover of the Chang'e 3 mission respectively. They both use a Bayer color filter array covering CMOS sensor to capture color images of the Moon's surface. RGB values of the original images are related to these two kinds of cameras. There is an obvious color difference compared with human visual perception. This paper follows standards published by the International Commission on Illumination to establish a color correction model, designs the ground calibration experiment and obtains the color correction coefficient. The image quality has been significantly improved and there is no obvious color difference in the corrected images. Ground experimental results show that:(1) Compared with uncorrected images, the average color difference of TCAM is 4.30, which has been reduced by 62.1%.(2) The average color differences of the left and right cameras in PCAM are 4.14 and 4.16, which have been reduced by 68.3% and 67.6% respectively.     

Optical design of the new solar telescope GREGOR

This article describes the considerations which led to the current optical design of the new 1.5 m solar telescope GREGOR. The result is Gregorian design with two real foci in the optical train. The telescope includes a relay optic with a pupil image used by a high order adaptive optics system (AO). The optical design is described in detail and performance characteristics are given. Finally we show some verification results which prove that – without atmospheric effects – the completed telescope reaches a diffraction limited performance (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

DENIS: A deep near-infrared survey of the southern sky

The DENIS project is the first attempt to carry out a complete digitized survey of the southern sky in the range 1–2.5µm. The main objectives of the programme and the main specifications of the camera and of the data processing stream are briefly outlined     

A fast tracking mirror for adaptive optics

A piezo driven tilt mirror was developed and built as one component of an image motion compensation system for a solar telescope. The bandwidth of the mirror with a diameter of 60 mm is about 1 kHz with negligible phase shift between input signal and mirror response up to 900 Hz. The tilt range is 1.6 mrad. Special care was taken to maintain the surface quality of the mirror to better than /15 after fixing it to the substrate.     

Laser guide stars for extremely large telescopes: efficient Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor design using the weighted centre-of-gravity algorithm

Over the last few years increasing consideration has been given to the study of laser guide stars (LGS) for the measurement of the disturbance introduced by the atmosphere in optical and near-infrared (near-IR) astronomical observations from the ground. A possible method for the generation of a LGS is the excitation of the sodium layer in the upper atmosphere at approximately 90 km of altitude. Since the sodium layer is approximately 10 km thick, the artificial reference source looks elongated, especially when observed from the edge of a large aperture. The spot elongation strongly limits the performance of the most common wavefront sensors. The centroiding accuracy in a Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor, for instance, decreases proportionally to the elongation (in a photon noise dominated regime). To compensate for this effect, a straightforward solution is to increase the laser power, i.e. to increase the number of detected photons per subaperture. The scope of the work presented in this paper is twofold: an analysis of the performance of the weighted centre of gravity algorithm for centroiding with elongated spots and the determination of the required number of photons to achieve a certain average wavefront error over the telescope aperture.     

A New Bolide Station at the High Tatra Mountains

The European Fireball Network (EN) is operating since 1963 and one of its stable stations, from the very beginning, is the station at the Skalnate Pleso Observatory in the High Tatras. The station is sited at a height of 1788 m. More than 2900 expositions has been made at the Skalnate Pleso station since 1964 and among them one significant and spectacular event was recorded––bolide Turji-Remety in 2001 followed by a fall of about 450 kg meteorite (Spurny and Porubcan [in: Warmbein (ed.) Asteroids Comets Meteors, 2002]). A systematic search for the meteorite was unsuccessful. The new station having an ideal horizon will be operating since July 2007 on the top of Lomnicky Stit (2636 m above the sea level). This station will be equipped with an Autonomous Fireball Observatory of the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, which are already utilized in the Czech part of the EN for several years.     

The AzTEC mm-wavelength camera

AzTEC is a mm-wavelength bolometric camera utilizing 144 silicon nitride micromesh detectors. Here, we describe the AzTEC instrument architecture and its use as an astronomical instrument. We report on several performance metrics measured during a three-month observing campaign at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and conclude with our plans for AzTEC as a facility instrument on the Large Millimetre Telescope.     

STK: A new CCD camera at the University Observatory Jena

The Schmidt‐Teleskop‐Kamera (STK) is a new CCD‐imager, which is operated since begin of 2009 at the University Observatory Jena. This article describes the main characteristics of the new camera. The properties of the STK detector, the astrometry and image quality of the STK, as well as its detection limits at the 0.9 m telescope of the University Observatory Jena are presented (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Absolute Tilt from a Laser Guide Star: A First Experiment

Absolute tip–tilt recovery using a tilt signal measured on a Laser Guide Star is a central problem in the framework of the development of Adaptive Optics Systems reaching full sky coverage down to visible wavelengths. In the past few years, various techniques aimed at solving this problemhave been proposed. However only a couple of these has been recentlytested in practice.We report about an experiment aimed at evaluating the performance of one of these techniques called the Elongation Perspective technique. Our experiment has been performed using the ALFA system inCalar-Alto (Spain) and involves the simultaneous operation of the 3.6 m and the 2.2 m telescopes at the Observatory.This article describes the telescope configuration used, as well as the datareduction process carried out in order to estimate the scientific objecttilt. The technique performances are discussed in terms of the residualtilt error variance and related correlation coefficient. The analysisshows that, despite the low SNR of our measurements, the atmospheric tiltvariance is reduced to 80% of its initial value corresponding to acorrelation coefficient of about 0.6. To get a betterestimate of the performance achievable using this technique,the tilt error variance due to photon noise in the laser measurementis estimated and removed from the obtained tilt error variance.When this correction is done, thisvariance is reduced to about 50% of its initial value, showingthat the use of this technique can give rise to a significant reduction of the scientific object image motion.     

A diffraction limit on the gravitational lens effect

The focussing of gravitational radiation by the interior and exterior gravitational field of a Newtonian gravitational lens is considered. A graphical method for determining the caustic structure of a Newtonian gravitational lens is presented and the caustic structure of a solar type gravitational lens is discussed. Estimates of the amplitude magnification in the caustic region indicate that waves with frequencies less than a critical cutoff frequency ω _c are not amplified significantly. For a lens of massM this cutoff frequency is ω _c ≈(10^-1πM)^-1; for the Sun ω _c ≈10⁴s^-1. Work supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant PHY78-05368.     

A z-invariant Rayleigh beacon wavefront sensor

An innovative concept of wavefront sensing for Rayleigh beacons is introduced along with an example of a possible wavefront sensor. This new approach does not require the gating technique to limit the useful range of the laser source and therefore looks simpler to implement than previous Rayleigh concepts, and may additionally allow more efficient use of the photons emitted by the Rayleigh beacon. Our technique is based upon an optical element in the focal plane area whose section does not change for the conjugation of different ranges from the telescope aperture, hence the name z -invariant. The wavefront sensor shown here is an example of this new class. It is a compact pupil-plane wavefront sensor and as such allows for a layer-oriented configuration. It is shown that its sensitivity, while higher than usual gating approaches, is far from the possible limits leading us to speculate that other z -invariant wavefront sensors can reach much larger efficiencies.     

A Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor projected on to the sky with reduced focal anisoplanatism

A method for producing a laser guide star wavefront sensor for adaptive optics with reduced focal anisoplanatism is presented. A theoretical analysis and numerical simulations have been carried out and the results are presented. The technique, named Sky-Projected Laser Array Shack–Hartmann (SPLASH), is shown to suffer considerably less from focal anisoplanatism than a conventional laser guide star system. The method is potentially suitable for large telescope apertures (∼8 m), and possibly for extremely large telescopes.     

The infrared space observatory camera

At the focal plane of the ISO 60 cm telescope, ISOCAM will take images of the sky in the wavelength range 2.5 to 17 m. It features two independent channels, containing each a 32×32 array detector. The long wavelength (4–17 m) detector, developed by LIR-LETI specifically for ISOCAM, is a Si:Ga array bonded with indium bumps to a DV readout circuit. The short wavelength (2.5–5.5 m) detector, developed by SAT, is an InSb array with a CID readout.Only one channel operates at a time. The channel selection is obtained with two field mirrors supported by a wheel. The field mirror in operation is in the focal plane of the telescope, covering the 3 arcmin field of view, and reflecting the light into one or into the other channel.In each channel, 10 or 12 discrete band pass filters and CVFs with resolution 45 are mounted on a wheel. A second wheel supports a set of lenses, which reimage the focal plane of the telescope on the array, with a pixel field of view of 1.5, 3, 6 or 12 arcsec.Two integrating spheres, illuminated through small holes by black body sources, are mounted on the selection wheel, for flat fielding and calibration purposes.The flight model of ISOCAM, fully tested and calibrated, has been, delivered to ESA and is ready to be integrated in the satellite, whose expected launch date is September 1995.