Wide Field Infrared Camera (WFCAM)

WFCAM is an example of a camera system built around state of the art HgCdTe detectors. The camera has been designed to maximise survey speed at J, H and K (central λ: 1.25, 1.63 and 2.2 μm) wavebands while retaining excellent image quality over a large field of view.

  • Focal plane consists of 4 Rockwell Hawaii-II (HgCdTe 2048x2048) IR arrays spaced by 94%
  • A filled square of sky covering 0.75 square degrees can be achieved with 4 separately pointed observations tiled together during data reduction
  • 0.4 arc-second pixels
  • 0.2 or 0.13 arc-second per pixel sampling is provided by a micro-stepping mode allowing accurate pointing shifts of typically 1/2 or 1/3 of a pixel, followed by subsequent interleaving of the frames
  • Raw data products from WFCAM total about 100Gb per night.
  • On-line processing at the telescope provides near real time data quality assessment and initial science results
WFCAM