UCLA Infrared Lab
IRIS LIGER GPI MOSFIRE FLITECAM SHARC OSIRIS NIRC2 NIRSPEC USNO IR Camera Gemini K-CAM
Brown Dwarf Spectroscopic Survey (BDSS) Center for Adaptive Optics Treasury Survey (CATS) Star Formation Regions Polarimetry Galactic Center Galaxy Clusters
UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy UCLA Division of Astronomy and Astrophysics W.M. Keck Observatory UCO Lick Observatory TMT International Observatory NASA SOFIA Observatory Center for Adaptive Optics WISE - Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Astrobiology Magazine Spitzer Space Telescope

Gemini

The UCLA twin-channel (Gemini) camera is the only one of its kind in the world. The detectors are both 256 x 256 pixel arrays. In the short-wavelength channel (1-2.4 microns) we use the Rockwell International NICMOS3 HgCdTe array and in the long-wavelength channel (2 - 5 microns) we employ the indium antimonide (InSb) array made by Hughes-Santa Barbara Research Center (SBRC, Goleta, Ca.). NOTE: the 2-micron K band can be directed to either channel for cross calibrations.

First Light was obtained in June 1993.

Among the unique features of this instrument are:

  • Compact electronic control system based on Transputers
  • Cryogenic system based on a closed-cycle refrigerator
  • Multiple optical configurations with full automation
  • User-friendly, menu-driven software with instant, side-by-side display of images obtained by both channels
  • Excellent sensitivity
  • Two wavelength channels selected by a dichroic beam-splitter
  • A ten-position filter wheel for each channel and provision for a grism
    Filters include Br alpha, Br gamma, S(1) 2.122, CO bandhead, 3.3 microns
  • Cold aperture wheel with 77K slit and coronagraph occulting spot. Cold Lyot stop.

Technical Descriptions:
I.S. McLean et al. 1993, in Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation, ed. A. Fowler (Bellingham:SPIE), 513.
I.S. McLean et al. 1994, in Instrumentation in Astronomy VIII, eds. D.L. Crawford and E.R. Craine (Bellingham:SPIE), 457.

The image scale on the UCO 3-m Shane Telescope at Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamilton, Ca., is 0.675 arcsecond/pixel giving an excellent field of view of almost 3x3 arcminutes for infrared surveys.

Options include: direct infrared imaging using broad and narrow spectral bands, infrared spectroscopy (R = 550), infrared polarimetry (both in imaging and spectroscopic mode), stellar coronagraphic imaging.

The spectroscopic mode is achieved by equipping each beam of the two-channel camera with grisms. A grism is a (small) right-angled prism with a transmission diffraction grating deposited on the hypotenuse. The grisms are located in the filter wheel and provide a spectrum of a source located in the entrance slit. An entrance slit of fixed width (2 pixels) can be selected instead of an open aperture.