WIRC

WIRC is the Wide-field InfraRed Camera for the prime focus of the Hale 200-inch telescope at Palomar Observatory. It is the product of TeamWIRC at Cornell University (though neither WIRC's PI nor Project Scientist are there any longer):

Steve Eikenberry (PI) John Wilson (lead scientist),

Joe Carson (grad student) Chuck Henderson (mechanical engineer)

Tom Hayward, Bernhard Brandl, Don Barry, and Bruce Pirger.

WIRC uses a 9-element corrector camera to provide a 9x9-arcminute seeing-limited field-of-view at the prime focus of the 200-inch telescope. Telic Optics designed and built the camera with significant input from Hayward, Wilson, Brandl, and Eikenberry. WIRC saw first light in November 2001 with a 1024x1024-pixel HAWAII array, providing a 4.5x4.5-arcminute FOV. It will be upgraded to a 2048x2048-pixel HAWAII-2 array in the summer of 2002 which will use the entire 9x9-arcmin FOV provided by WIRC's optics. Caltech is providing the 2K array for the upgrade, while Cornell will carry out the upgrade and installation and is providing a 32-channel electronics system to operate the new array in a scientifically effective manner.

WIRC-2K First Light!!!: WIRC saw first light with its Caltech-supplied 2Kx2K HAWAII-2 science-grade array on September 1, 2002. For the next few months WIRC-2Ka will use the Caltech 4-channel electronics and software interface (provided by Roger Smith, Marco Bonati, and Dani Guzman, with help/support from CTIO), while waiting for the Cornell 32-channel electronics and interface.

Check out a small version of WIRC-2K's image of NGC 253, or the big version (full resolution 2Kx2K).

Check out a small version of WIRC-2K's image of the Crab Nebula, or the big version (full resolution 2Kx2K).

Check out the First Light images from November, 2001 here!

WIRC Antennae image featured as NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Some performance information relevant for Palomar proposers is here.

This is a (PDF) progress report on WIRC results thus far for the August 2002 SPIE meeting in Kona.

High-contrast small-angle imaging with a wide-field camera: This is a WIRC differential methane-band image of the famous T-dwarf Gliese 229B. Integration time is 16 seconds per band.

For a WIRC schematic diagram click here.

Project Status:

WIRC is currently in operation at Palomar Observatory using the interim Caltech 4-channel electronics..

Cornell's final 32-channel electronics for WIRC-2K are being built this fall for installation with WIRC in winter 2002-2003.

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