With
MegaCam,
the largest wide-field digital camera ever operated on a telescope,
CFHT has
delivered exciting science as well as stunning pictures of the universe
for the
past three years. MegaCam images are, however, limited
to the visible light. Today, CFHT is extending its wide
vision to the invisible red side of the spectrum, thanks to WIRCam, an
infrared
camera recently put in operation on CHFT’s 3.6-m telescope on Mauna
Kea, the
highest mountain of the
With WIRCam and
MegaCam, CFHT is the only facility in the world offering its users the
opportunity to observe their favorite areas
of the sky from the near ultra-violet (0.320 micrometers) to the
near
infrared (2.5 micrometers). While WIRCam has only one-ninth of the
field of
view of MegaCam, it is joining a very selective club of infrared
arrays, all of
them operating from Mauna Kea, boasting as many as 16 MegaPixels. It is
also the first one in operation to work with the new generation of
infrared detectors that will
be used on the James Webb Space Telescope and taking advantage of the
on-chip guiding capability of these devices built by Rockwell
Scientific.
WIRCam is the
result of an exemplary collaboration between laboratories in
Images
and
detailed information on WIRCam are available at the following url:
http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/News/WIRCam1stLight/
Contact: Christian Veillet - 1 (808) 938 3905
Loic Albert - 1 (808) 885 7944