Current instruments and plans for new instruments for the W.M. Keck Observatory are reviewed on behalf of the Keck Science Steering Committee. Much has happened in the last two years. Both 10-meter telescopes have been in full operation for some time and each has a significant complement of instruments. Adaptive optics systems are functioning on both telescopes, the Keck II laser guide star system has been tested, and the Keck Interferometer has achieved first fringes. The existing LRIS spectrograph on Keck I has been upgraded to provide a UV/blue optimized channel and two new instruments have been delivered within the past year, namely, DEIMOS, a multi-object spectrograph and NIRC2, a diffraction-limited IR camera. A near-infrared integral field unit spectrometer for AO is currently under development, as is a CCD detector upgrade for the existing HIRES spectrograph. Future plans include detector upgrades for LRIS-R, and a powerful wide-field near-IR multi-object spectrometer.

The Subaru Telescope has seven first generation optical and infrared instruments now being handed-over from the instrument teams to the observatory and being offered for its open use. We describe brief history of the telescope project and overview of the instrumentation program. Brief status of the Individual instruments is given separately. Exchanging focal plane and instruments is important for such multi-purpose telescope and the effectiveness of the system with the Subaru Telescope is discussed. Finally, current challenges of the program and future plans are summarized.

This is the fourth in a series of SPIE papers that chronicle the accomplishments, challenges, and evolution of Gemini's instrumentation program. For the first time we are pleased to report about progress made on instruments being fabricated as well as results with completed instruments, now steadily producing world-class scientific results at the Gemini Observatory. With the steady arrival of new facility class instruments, we anticipate phasing out our reliance on visitor instruments, which have enabled our early scientific capabilities at both Gemini-N and Gemini-S. Currently two facility class instruments are operational and six more are due in roughly a year, hence commissioning all of these instruments in Hawaii and Chile will doubtless be an enormous task for the staff at Gemini in the near future.

An overview of the 3 facility instruments and 2 strategic interferometric instruments under construction for the Large Binocular Telescope is presented. Planned optical instrumentation includes the Large Binocular Camera (LBC), a pair of wide-field (25' x 25') UB/VRI optimized mosaic CCD imagers at the prime focus, and the MultiObject Double Spectrograph (MODS), a pair of dual-beam blue-red optimized longslit spectrographs mounted at the straight-through F/15 Gregorian focus incorporating multiple slit masks for multi-object spectroscopy over a 5' field and spectral resolutions of 2000-8000. Infrared instrumentation includes the LBT Near-IR Spectroscopic Utility with Camera and Integral Field Unit for Extragalactic Research (LUCIFER), a modular near-infrared (0.9-2.5 μm) imager and spectrograph pair mounted at a bent interior focal station and designed for seeing limited (FOV: 4' x 4') and diffraction limited (FOV: 0.5' x 0.5') imaging and longslit spectroscopy, seeing limited multiobject spectroscopy utilizing cooled slit masks, and optional diffraction limited integral field spectroscopy. Strategic instruments under development for the remaining two combined focal stations include an interferometric cryogenic beam combiner with NIR and thermal IR instruments for Fizeau imaging and nulling interferometry and an optical bench beam combiner with visible and NIR imagers utilizing in the future multi-conjugate adaptive optics for angular resolutions as high as 5 mas at a wavelength of 0.5 μm. The availability of all these instruments mounted simultaneously on the LBT permits flexible scheduling and improved operational support.

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) is a revolutionary large telescope of 9.2 meter aperture, located in West Texas at McDonald Observatory. Early scientific operations started on October 8, 1999. The HET operates with a fixed segmented primary and has a tracker which moves the four-mirror corrector and prime focus instrument package to track the sidereal and non-sidereal motions of objects. As of two years ago, the HET was taking science data but the image quality and primary mirror stability were far from specifications. We established the HET Completion Project to identify and fix these problems, and here we describe the current performance of the HET relative to its goals, focusing on progress made in the past two years. The first phase of HET instrumentation includes three facility instruments: the Low Resolution Spectrograph (LRS) and High Resolution Spectrograph (HRS), which are in operation, and the Medium Resolution Spectrograph (MRS), which will be commissioned in the summer and autumn. The current status of the instruments is described in detail with performance measures.

The Phase A study for the California Extremely Large Telescope (CELT) Project has recently been completed. As part of this exercise a working group was set-up to evolve instrumentation strategies matched to the scientific case for the CELT facility. We report here on the proposed initial instrument suite which includes not only massively multiplexed seeing-limited multi-object spectroscopy but also on plans for wide-field adaptive optics fed integral-field spectroscopy and imaging at, or approaching, CELT's diffraction limit.

An update on the design status of the UKIRT Wide Field Camera (WFCAM) is presented. WFCAM is a wide field infrared camera for the UK Infrared Telescope, designed to produce large scale infrared surveys. The complete system consists of a new IR camera with integral autoguider and a new tip/tilt secondary mirror unit. WFCAM is being designed and built by a team at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh, supported by the Joint Astronomy Centre in Hawaii. The camera uses a novel quasi-Schmidt camera type design, with the camera mounted above the UKIRT primary mirror. The optical system operates over 0.7 - 2.4 μm and has a large corrected field of view of 0.9° diameter. The focal plane is sparsely populated with 4 2K x 2K Rockwell HAWAII-2 MCT array detectors, giving a pixel scale of 0.4 arcsec/pixel. A separate autoguider CCD is integrated into the focal plane unit. Parallel detector controllers are used, one for each of the four IR arrays and a fifth for the autoguider CCD.

MegaCam is an imaging camera with a 1 square degree field of view for the new prime focus of the 3.6 meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. This instrument will mainly be used for large deep surveys ranging from a few to several thousands of square degrees in sky coverage and from 24 to 28.5 in magnitude. The camera is built around a CCD mosaic approximately 30 cm square, made of 40 large thinned CCD devices for a total of 20 K x 18 K pixels. It uses a custom CCD controller, a closed cycle cryocooler based on a pulse tube, a 1 m diameter half-disk as a shutter, a juke-box for the selection of the filters, and programmable logic controllers and fieldbus network to control the different subsystems. The instrument was delivered to the observatory on June 10, 2002 and first light is scheduled in early October 2002.

A high-speed photometer, "OPTIMA" short for Optical Pulsar Timing Analyzer, has been designed as a sensitive, portable detector to observe optical pulsars and other highly variable sources. The detector contains eight fiber fed avalanche photodiode single photon counters, a GPS timing receiver, a CCD camera for target acquisition and a computerized control unit. The central fibers are configured as a hexagonal bundle around the target fiber, while one fiber is located at a distance of ~1' as a monitor for the night sky background. Recently a rotating polarization filter and a 4-color prism spectrograph have been added to the system as optional equipment. Since January 1999 OPTIMA has been used on different telescopes to measure detailed lightcurves and polarization of the Crab Pulsar, in a search for optical emission from the Geminga pulsar, and for the timing of cataclysmic variables and X-ray transients.

We describe the current status and technical aspects of the GOHSS (Galileo OH Subtracted Spectrograph) project. Here we point out the most critical items and how we have implemented innovative technical solutions to fulfill the compelling requirements imposed by both the optical tolerances and the demands of a high sensitivity. In particular we examine the camera lens mechanics realized in ultra low expansion quartz; the refrigerator system; the IR array mount realized in an unconventional way; the effort put in procuring optical devices with quite large efficiencies. We are also developing the data reduction package along with the instrument simulator: the optimized procedures and the results on the visibility function of galaxies are given as well. Currently the instrument is in the integration phase at the laboratories of the Astronomical Observatory of Rome and the commissioning phase at the telescope is expected to start at the beginning of year 2003.

MIRSI (Mid-InfraRed Spectrometer and Imager) is a mid-infrared camera system recently completed at Boston University that has both spectroscopic and imaging capabilities. MIRSI is uniquely suited for studies of young stellar objects and star formation, planetary and protoplanetary nebulae, starburst galaxies, and solar system objects such as planets, asteroids, and comets. The camera utilizes a 320 x 240 Si:As Impurity Band Conduction (IBC) array developed for ground-based astronomy by Raytheon/SBRC. For observations at the Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF), MIRSI offers a large field of view (1.6 arcmin x 1.2 arcmin) with a pixel scale of 0.3 arcsec, diffraction-limited spatial resolution, complete spectral coverage over the 8-14 μm and 17-26 μm atmospheric windows for both imaging (discrete filters and circular variable filter) and spectroscopy (10 and 20 μm grisms), and high sensitivity (expected one-sigma point source sensitivities of 5 and 20 mJy at 10 and 20 μm, respectively, for on-source integration time of 30 seconds). MIRSI successfully achieved first light at the Mt. Lemmon Observing Facility (MLOF) in December 2001, and will have its first observing run at the IRTF in November 2002. We present details of the system hardware and software and results from first light observations.

TIMMI2 ESO's 2^nd generation Thermal Infrared Multimode Instrument had astronomical first light in October 2000 at the 3.6 m telescope on La Silla, Chile. Since February 2001 it is in regular use, both by visiting astronomers and in service mode, typically one third of the total telescope time. Using a Raytheon 240 x 320 pixel As:Si-BIB detector allows imaging and grism spectroscopy between 5 and 24 μm. TIMMI2 has also a linear polarimetry mode. We will give a description of the instrument from technical to operational aspects. Because of the substantial gain in sensitivity as compared to previous generation instruments a new set of infrared calibration standards has been constructed. The instrument and telescope are subject of an ongoing sensitivity monitoring program enabling to improve the sensitivity while allowing to spot the development of problems immediately. For stellar objects the sensitivity 10 σ in 1 hour of telescope time is in the range of 15 - 30 mJy. TIMMI2 at the telescope shows negligible flexure (≤ 0.2") while having basically diffraction limited performance for λ ≥ 8 μm.

Two DRS Technologies (formerly Boeing Sensors and Electronic Systems) 256 x 256 Si:As Blocked Impurity Band (BIB) focal plane arrays have been rigorously tested in 2001 and 2002 in the IR laboratory of CEA/Saclay/Service d'Astrophysique. These mid-IR arrays equip VISIR, the mid-infrared imager and spectrometer made under contract by CEA (France) and ASTRON (Netherlands) for the ESO Very Large Telescope. Measurement results crucial to the project appliction are presented. These include array dark current versus temperature and the Background Limited noise Performance (BLIP) capability. Operational optimization for astronomical use is also discussed in this paper.

Superconducting tunnel junctions (STJs) offer the capability of photon counting with intrinsic energy resolving power. This resolving power is ultimately limited by the variance on the number of charge carriers generated in the photon absorption process (Fano limit) and the variance on the number of tunnelled charge carriers (tunnel limit). In addition, the performance can be degraded by electronic noise related to the read-out of the devices and by spatial non-uniformities in the response across the detector area. The present generation of our Ta-Al STJs is such that their spectroscopic performance in the UV/visible is limited by tunnel noise. This noise contribution is usually considered a device constant, (which may only vary marginally with bias conditions) and evaluated for infinite integration time. It can be shown, however, that the tunnel noise contribution is strongly time dependent and can be reduced by almost an order of magnitude for a properly chosen integration time. In this paper we present the experimental demonstration and numerical simulations of this time dependence on a series of Ta-Al STJs with different pulse decay times. The experimental results are in qualitative agreement with the simulations, but do not quite achieve the predicted performance. For the optimum configuration, an effective tunnel noise contribution of ~70% of the conventional tunnel limit is found.

The Suprime-Cam is a CCD camera which is attached to the prime focus of the Subaru Telescope. Ten MIT/LL CCDs are tiled with small gaps to realize large field of view (34' x 27') with 0.2 arcsec sampling. This makes the Suprime-Cam very powerful and unique instrument among 8-10m class telescopes. We present basic design, key techniques, current status and performance of the Suprime-Cam. We also mention ongoing survey programs with the Suprime-Cam, followed by future upgrade plans of the camera.

LIRIS is a near-infrared (0.9 - 2.4 microns) intermediate resolution spectrograph (R = 1000-3000) conceived as a common user instrument for the (WHT) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM) La Palma. LIRIS is now being assembled, integrated and virified at the Instituto Astrofisico de Canarias (IAC). LIRIS will have imaging, long-slit and multi-object spectroscopy working modes. Coronography and polarimetry capabilities will eventually be added. Image capability will allow easy target acquisition.

COMICS is an observatory and mid-infrared instrument for the 8.2 m Subaru Telescope. It is designed for imaging and spectroscopic observations in the N- (8-13 micron) and Q-bands (16-25 micron) atmospheric windows. The design and very preliminary performances at the first light observations in December 1999 were reported at the SPIE meeting in 2000. We describe here the improved performances of COMICS and capability of high spectral resolution spectrocopy which became available from December 2001. We will also briefly report preliminary scientific results.

The UKATC has recently delivered and commissioned the Michelle mid-IR spectrograph on UKIRT. This instrument has a variety of precision vacuum-cryogenic mechanisms that utilize technology developed over a number of years at the UKATC in instruments such as IRCAM, CGS4, SCUBA, GMOS and UIST. In these applications it is critical that the mechanisms operate reliably and with a high degree of precision. In most cases the mechanisms support optical elements that must be rigidly held in place when the instrument is tilted during observations on the telescope. This paper describes the level of performance achieved with the Michelle mechanisms and the critical elements of their design.

The design of the Redstar3 array control system including operational requirements and performance is presented. The architecture is intended to support next generation large format infrared/optical arrays and mosaics by using a new scalable approach that takes advantage of commercially available electronics. Specifically, an approach of using a combination of high speed fiber links, networked PCs and Linux to replace the previous generation of VME based DSPs will be discussed in detail. The design will be used to control HAWAII-2RG (1-4.9μm 2Kx2K HgCdTe), Aladdin II and III (1-5 μm 1Kx1K InSb) arrays in facility class instruments for Gemini, NSO and IRTF. It is also intended to be the platform for high count curvature correction, waveform sense and control for adaptive optics.

TEXES, the Texas Echelon Cross Echelle Spectrograph, is an ideal instrument to study molecular clouds at a spectral resolving power of 100,000 between 5 and 25 μm. In many molecular clouds, high extinction often means that no visible stars are available for off-axis guiding. At a resolving power of 100,000, only the very brightest sources can be observed while guiding on the power in the dispersed IR spectra. We present the design of a high-speed on-axis guider for TEXES operating at 3.65 μm, a wavelength outside the spectrometer operating band where many of the target sources are still detectable for imaging. We use a new technology gold nanomesh resonant IR filter/mirror from EDTEK, that transmits 3.65 μm light to the guide detector with a peak transmittance of 60% while reflecting light from 5 μm long-ward with 98% efficiency to the dispersing elements in the spectrograph. A PC controls clocking patterns for the CRC-463 detector from Raytheon Infrared Operations and the analog to digital conversion of signals with a 14 bit A/D card. Image centroiding is done in software and then offsets are sent to the telescope for pointing adjustments or tip-tilt corrections when a tip-tilt secondary is available. This system is a prototype designed to test the feasibility of a similar guider for EXES, the Echelon Cross Echelle Spectrograph, mounted on SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy.

The DEep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS) images with an 8K x 8K science mosaic composed of eight 2K x 4K MIT/Lincoln Lab (MIT/LL) CCDs. It also incorporates two 1200 x 600 Orbit Semiconductor CCDs for active, close-loop flexure compensation. The science mosaic CCD controller system reads out all eight science CCDs in 40 seconds while maintaining the low noise floor of the MIT/Lincoln Lab CCDs. The flexure compensation (FC) CCD controller reads out the FC CCDs several times per minute during science mosaic exposures. The science mosaic CCD controller and the FC CCD controller are located on the electronics ring of DEIMOS. Both the MIT/Lincoln Lab CCDs and the Orbit flexure compensation CCDs and their associated cabling and printed circuit boards are housed together in the same detector vessel that is approximately 10 feet away from the electronics ring. Each CCD controller has a modular hardware design and is based on the San Diego State University (SDSU) Generation 2 (SDSU-2) CCD controller. Provisions have been made to the SDSU-2 video board to accommodate external CCD preamplifiers that are located at the detector vessel. Additional circuitry has been incorporated in the CCD controllers to allow the readback of all clocks and bias voltages for up to eight CCDs, to allow up to 10 temperature monitor and control points of the mosaic, and to allow full-time monitoring of power supplies and proper power supply sequencing. Software control features of the CCD controllers are: software selection between multiple mosaic readout modes, readout speeds, selectable gains, ramped parallel clocks to eliminate spurious charge on the CCDs, constant temperature monitoring and control of each CCD within the mosaic, proper sequencing of the bias voltages of the CCD output MOSFETs, and anti-blooming operation of the science mosaic. We cover both the hardware and software highlights of both of these CCD controller systems as well as their respective performance.

EMIR is a intermediate resolution near infrared (1.0 - 2.5 microns) multiobject spectrograph with image capabilities, to be mounted on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC). EMIR is being built by a consortium of Spanish, French and British institutions, led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. EMIR is being funded by GRANTECAN and the Plan Nacional de Astronomía y Astrofísica (National Plan for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Spain) as one of the first common user instruments for the GTC. The instrument shall deliver images and spectra from a large FOV (6x6 arcmin in imaging mode, and 6x4 arcmin in multislit spectroscopic mode). Due to the telescope image scale (1 arcmin = 52 mm) and the spectral resolution required (around 4000), one of the major challenges of the instrument is the optical design and the manufacture. The detailed optical design and its expected performance will be presented. In particular the main risk areas will be identified and our risk control strategy will be outlined.

The UIST instrument is a 1-5μm Imager Spectrometer for the UKIRT telescope. The instrument has a high spatial resolution, and is designed to critically sample image sizes of 0.24arcsec. The instrument weighs 750kg and measures approximately 1100x1000x700mm. The flexure specification for the instrument is to maintain the image at the slit within 10% of the narrowest slit width, which is 44μm wide. However combined flexure of the instrument and its supporting structure is expected to be many times more than this. To meet the UIST flexure requirements we propose use of an instrument specific component in the telescope pointing model, to correct for repeatable flexure. Two designs for mounting regimes are presented, together with flexure test results and a discussion of the use of a simple pointing correction. The first, flexible, truss design did not meet requirements and was replaced with a rigid truss system. The paper describes some lessons learned during the development of the UIST mounting scheme, which can be applied in other instrument designs.

Since the beginning of the VISIR project, the calibration aspects have been taken into account as an integral part of the design. In order to provide the user and the archive with high quality and well-controlled data, it is mandatory to have, during the routine observation phase, all calibration observations as part of the instrument set-up activities and as part of the actual Astronomical Observing Template. We propose here to review the calibration of VISIR observations. After a description of the various hardware tools which have been introduced for calibration purposes (warm calibration unit, distortion grid, pupil imaging optics, wavelength calibration modules), we will present the calibrations in four astronomical categories (spatial resolution, photometry, astrometry and wavelength calibration). Cross-calibrations between the Imager and Spectrometer subsystems will also be addressed.

A wide-field near-infrared (0.8 - 2.4 μm) camera for the 1.6 m telescope of the Observatoire du mont Megantic (OMM), is currently under construction at the Universite de Montreal. The field of view is 30' × 30' and will have very little distortion. The optics comprise 8 spherical cryogenic lenses. The instrument features two filter wheels with provision for 10 filters including broad band I, z, J, H, K and other narrow-band filters. The camera is based on a 2048 × 2048 HgCdTe Hawaii-2 detector driven by a 3--output SDSU-II controller operating at ~250 kHz.

We report on the results of the performance tests of the HAWAII-2 FPAs for Multi-Object Infra-Red Camera and Spectrograph (MOIRCS). MOIRCS provides wide-field imaging mode (4'x7' F.O.V.) and multi-object spectroscopy mode for the wavelength range from 0.85 to 2.5 μm. To achieve the wide field-of-view with the high angular resolution, we use two 2048 x 2048 HgCdTe FPAs, HAWAII-2. We have made performance tests of both the engineering-grade and the science-grade HAWAII-2 arrays. Array performances such as stability of bias frames, read noise and dark current are evaluated at the operating temperature of 78K. In addition, we search for the optimum well depth, readout speed by changing bias voltages. We have finished tests of the engineering-grade array and the performance of our science-grade arrays is under investigation.

The University of Hawaii Wide-Field Imager (UHWFI) is a focal compressor designed to project the full half-degree field of the UH 2.2m telescope onto the refurbished 8K×8K CCD camera. The optics use Ohara glasses and are mounted in an oil-filled cell to minimize light losses and ghost images from the large number of internal surfaces. The UHWFI is equipped with a six-position filter wheel and a rotating sector shutter, both driven by stepper motors. The instrument is currently in the design phase and will be commissioned early in 2003.

The SOAR Optical Imager (SOI) is the commissioning instrument for the 4.2-m SOAR telescope, which is sited on Cerro Pachón, and due for first light in April 2003. It is being built at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, and is one of a suite of first-light instruments being provided by the four SOAR partners (NOAO, Brazil, University of North Carolina, Michigan State University). The instrument is designed to produce precision photometry and to fully exploit the expected superb image quality of the SOAR telescope, over a 6x6 arcmin field. Design goals include maintaining high throughput down to the atmospheric cut-off, and close reproduction of photometric passbands throughout 310-1050nm. The focal plane consists of a two-CCD mosaic of 2Kx4K Lincoln Labs CCDs, following an atmospheric dispersion corrector, focal reducer, and tip-tilt sensor. Control and data handling are within the LabVIEW-Linux environment used throughout the SOAR Project.

CONICA is the first AO equipped multimode near infrared camera which saw first light at the VLT in the end of 2001. A technique will be described to benefit of the AO system NAOS to correct not only for atmospheric turbulence but also for the internal optical aberrations of the high resolution camera. The aberrant optical components in the light path of CONICA are outside of the AO loop and therefore no self-acting correction is possible. Independently of the AO wave front sensor, a separate measurement of these minor aberrations using a method called phase diversity allows to predict for the variety of camera configurations the corresponding aberrations. They are quantified by sets of Zernike coefficients which are rendered to the adaptive optics. This technique turns out to be very flexible and results into a further improvement of the optical overall performance.

We describe an optical design process and image performance evaluations for Multi-Object near-InfraRed Camera and Spectrograph (MOIRCS). MOIRCS is a near-infrared imager and multi-object spectrograph under construction for the Subaru Telescope. MOIRCS provides direct imaging of 4' x 7' F.O.V. with a pixel scale of 0.12". MOIRCS also provides low-resolution multi-object spectroscopy with grisms and cooled multi-slit masks on the Cassegrain focal plane. CaF₂, BaF₂, ZnSe, and Fused Silica are used as the lens materials. They have high transmission in the near-infrared wavelength. During the design process, we find that a triplet with an achromatic doublet and a ZnSe singlet shows good performance for chromatic aberration. Therefore, we design our optics on the basis of the triplet with ZnSe. The designed optics shows good performances. Ensquared energy within 2 pixel square is more than 85% over the entire wavelength range and F.O.V. We do not need refocusing with the change of observed wavelengths because chromatic aberration is as small as 100 μm by the triplet with ZnSe over the entire wavelength range from 0.85 to 2.5 μm. Lateral chromatic aberration of 15 μm is less than 1 pixel size. Detailed tolerance analysis is done with possible manufacturing and aligning errors considered. The result shows that designed performances will be kept with a probability of 80% with reasonable tolerances. Ghost analysis is also done over entire F.O.V. and we find a ghost image of 13 magnitude fainter than original image that is not significant for our purpose. Therefore, we conclude that we can obtain enough performances with designed optics.

The Gemini Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (NIFS) will be used with the ALTAIR adaptive optics system on Gemini North. NIFS uses a reflective, concentric, integral field unit (IFU) to reformat its focal plane. The concentric IFU design integrates the IFU with the spectrograph collimator to form a dedicated IFU instrument. The IFU channels are identical and fanned about a single axis passing through the image slicer. The spherical optical surfaces of the spectrograph collimator are all concentric and centered on this fanning axis. The grating is also located on the fanning axis, and the system is arranged to produce coincident pupil images at the grating. In this way, each channel of the IFU performs as if it is on-axis. This avoids complications due to off-axis angles that are intrinsic to other reflective IFU designs.

We present a brief overview of the KALI Camera, the mid-infrared camera for the Keck Interferometer Nulling Project, built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The instrument utilizes mainly transmissive optics in four identical beam paths to spatially and spectrally filter, polarize, spectrally disperse and image the incoming 7-14 micron light from the four outputs of the Keck Nulling Beam Combiner onto a custom Boeing/DRS High Flux 128 X 128 BIB array. The electronics use a combination of JPL and Wallace Instruments boards to interface the array readout with the existing real-time control system of the Keck Interferometer. The cryogenic dewar, built by IR Laboratories, uses liquid nitrogen and liquid helium to cool the optics and the array, and includes six externally motorized mechanisms for aperture and pinhole control, focus, and optical component selection. The instrument will be assembled and tested through the summer of 2002, and is planned to be deployed as part of the Keck Interferometer Nulling experiment in 2003.

Omega2000 is a prime focus near infrared (NIR) wide-field camera for the 3.5 meter telescope at Calar Alto/Spain. Having a large field of view and an excellent optical quality, the instrument is particularly designed for survey observations. A cryogenic four lens focal reducer delivers a 15.4 x 15.4 arcminute field of view (FOV) with a pixel scale of 0.45"/pixel. The lenses are made of various optical materials, including CaF₂ and BaF₂ with diameters of up to 150 mm. They must be specially mounted to survive cooling and to follow the tight tolerances (± 0.05 mm for lens centricity and ± 30 arcsec for lens tilt) required by the optical design. For a wide range of observing applications, a filter mechanism can hold up to 17 filters of 3 inch diameter in 3 filter wheels. For exact and reproducible filter positions, a mechanical locking mechanism has been developed which also improves the cool-down performance of the filter wheels and filters. This mechanism allows a minimum distance of about 3 mm between the filter wheels. A Rockwell HAWAII-2 FPA is used to cover the wavelength range from 0.85 μm to 2.4 μm. Special care has been taken with regard to the thermal coupling of the detector. The thermal connection is made by gold layers on the fanout board and an additional spring-loaded mechanism. A warm mirror baffle system has been developed, in order to minimize the thermal background for K band observations. The camera is a focal reducer only and has no cold pupil stop.

We describe an instrument under development at the University of Texas for observation of lunar occultations with complete spectral coverage from 1 - 13 μm and with limiting angular resolutions of 1 - 4 milliarcsecond over that range. The instrument will utilize three 2-D arrays that will enable spectral dispersion with a resolving power, R ~ 100, and permit pupil division to avoid blurring the Fresnel fringes of an occultation. The scientific motivation for this program is based on observations of physical properties of circumstellar disks around young, forming stars, as well as of shells around evolved stars undergoing mass loss. We also describe some examples of results with a prototype version of this instrument that has been in use at McDonald Observatory for the last 18 months.

The Near-Infrared Camera and Fabry-Perot Spectrometer (NIC-FPS) will provide near-IR imaging over the wavelength range ~0.9-2.45 microns and medium resolution (R~10,000) full-field Fabry-Perot spectroscopy in the 1.5-2.4 micron range. Science observation will commence by mid 2004 on the Astrophysical Research Consortium 3.5-m telescope at the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, NM. NIC-FPS will allow a wide variety of extragalactic, galactic, and solar system observational programs to be conducted. NIC-FPS will support two observational modes, near-IR imaging or Fabry-Perot spectroscopy. For spectroscopy of line-emitting objects, the cryogenic Fabry-Perot etalon is inserted into the optical path to generate 3D spectral datacubes at ~30 km/s spectral resolution. For narrow to broad-band imaging, the etalon is removed from the optical path. Both modes will utilize a Rockwell Hawaii 1RG 1024 x 1024 HgCdTe detector which features low dark current, low noise and broad spectral response required for astronomical observations. The optics and detector will provide a full 4.6' × 4.6' field of view at 0.27" pixel. NIC-FPS will be mounted to the ARC telescope's Nasmyth port. NIC-FPS will significantly increase ARC's near-IR imaging and spectroscopy capabilities. We present NIC-FPS's optical design and instrument specifications.

TUFPAC (Tohoku University Focal Plane Array Controller) is an array control system originally designed for flexible control and efficient data acquisition of 2048 x 2048 HgCdTe (HAWAII-2) array. A personal computer operated by Linux OS controls mosaic HAWAII-2s with commercially available DSP boards installed on the PCI bus. Triggered by PC, DSP sends clock data to front-end electronics, which is isolated from the DSP board by photo-couplers. Front-end electronics supply powers, biases and clock signals to HAWAII2. Pixel data are read from four outputs of each HAWAII2 simultaneously by way of four channel preamps and ADCs. Pixel data converted to 16 bit digital data are stored in the frame memory on the DSP board. Data are processed in the memory when necessary. PC receives the frame data and stores it in the hard disk of PC in FITS format. A set of the DSP board and front-end electronics is responsible for controlling each HAWAII-2. One PC can operate eight mosaic arrays at most. TUFPAC is applicable to the control of CCDs with minor changes of front-end electronics.

We discuss the quality of the spectro-imaging data (integral field spectroscopy) of the GraF instrument used with the ADONIS adaptive optics system at the ESO 3.6 m telescope in 1997-2001. The integral filed spectroscopy was obtained using a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) in cross-dispersion with a grating spectrograph. A cube of spectro-imaging data at λ ≈ 2200 nm covers a 1.5" x 12.4" sky field sampled with 0.05" pixels; the field is recorded at 384 spectral points with the spectral resolution R ≈ 7000. The maximum field and spectral resolution are wavelength dependent, e.g. λ ≈ 1650 nm the field is 0.9" x 9" sampled with 0.035", recorded at 432 spectral points with R ≈ 10000. A spectrum of a B3III standard in the hydrogen Br-γ 2165.5 nm line and spectro-imaging of the complex central region of the eruptive star η Car in the spectral range 1668-1692 nm, including Br-11 1680.6 nm, [FeII] 1676.9 nm, FeII 1678.7 nm and FeII 1687.3 nm lines, are presented along with the discussion concentrated on the accurate calibration of the spatial point-spread function for the image deconvolution, the photometric monitoring of the FPI spectral scan channels, and on the final quality of the extracted spectra.

KMOS is a cryogenic multi-object near-infrared spectrograph for the VLT. It will be equipped with about 20 deployable integral field units (IFUs) which can be positioned anywhere in the 7.2 arcmin diameter field o the VLT Nasmyth focus by a cryogenic robot. We describe IFUs using micro lens arrays and optical fibers to arrange the two-dimensional fields from the IFUs on the spectrograph entrance slit. Each micro-lens array is mounted in a spider arm which also houses the pre-optics with a cold stop. The spider arms are positioned by a cryogenic robot which is built around the image plane. For the IFUs, two solutions are considered: monolithic mirco-lens arrays with fibers attached to the back where the entrance pupil is imaged, and tapered fibers with integrated lenses which are bundled together to form a lens array. The flexibility of optical fibers relaxes boundary conditions for integration of the instrument components. On the other hand, FRD and geometric characteristics of optical fibers leads to higher AΩ accepted by the spectrograph. Conceptual design of the instrument is presented as well as advantages and disadvantages of the fiber IFUs.

Lens mounts for cryogenic service have many requirements: mitigation of thermal shock on the lens, maintenance of lens centering and spacing, control of mechanical stress on the lens from the cell, reliable connection of the lens to the cell, and applicability to a wide variety of lens materials. This paper describes in detail a lens mounting system successfully used in several cryogenic instruments.

The MODS optical spectrograph uses a de-centered Maksutov-Schmidt camera with a clear aperture of ~300mm. This large camera has two widely spaced elements, the corrector and the camera mirror, and a field flattener near the focal plane. This paper describes the truss system that supports the optical elements very rigidly, uses adjustable length links to provide a deterministic method for alignment of the optical elements, and uses material combinations which result in a camera with nearly zero focus shift due to changes in temperature. A novel joint design for terminating the truss links is described that has excellent stiffness and enhances ease of assembly and alignment.

The new operations model for the CTIO Blanco 4-m telescope will use a small suite of fixed facility instruments for imaging and spectroscopy. The Infrared Side Port Imager, ISPI, provides the infrared imaging capability. We describe the optical, mechanical, electronic, and software components of the instrument. The optical design is a refractive camera-collimator system. The cryo-mechanical packaging integrates two LN₂-cooled dewars into a compact, straightline unit to fit within space constraints at the bent Cassegrain telescope focus. A HAWAII 2 2048 x 2048 HgCdTe array is operated by an SDSU II array controller. Instrument control is implemented with ArcVIEW, a proprietary LabVIEW-based software package. First light on the telescope is planned for September 2002.

A description of a new 1-5 micron filter set for infrared photometry is presented. This new Mauna Kea Observatories near-infrared filter set is designed to reduce background noise, improve photometric transformations from observatory to observatory, provide greater accuracy in extrapolating to zero airmass, and reduce the color dependence in the extinction coefficient in photometric reductions. Through this effort we hope to establish a single standard set of infrared filters for ground-based astronomy. A complete technical description is presented to facilitate the production of similar filters in the future.

CONICA has been developed by a German consortium under an ESO contract, to serve together with the VLT adaptive optics system NAOS as a high resolution multimode NIR camera and spectrograph. We report on final laboratory performance tests carried out during the integration period with the adaptive optics. Apart from an outline of the capabilities of this multimode instrument such as high resolution imaging, spectroscopy, Fabry-Perot and a sophisticated internal flexure compensation, we will turn our attention to a detailed examination of the detector characteristics to fully exploit the potential of the ALADDIN array.

The instrument LIRIS is a near IR spectrograph to be installed at the WHT telescope. Currently it is being assembled at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. The instrument will have a Hawaii 1Kx1K array as the detector. Here we report the laboratory characterization of the scientific grade unit. We give the relevant parameters such as linearity range, gain and readout noise. These results confirm that the science grade detector will fulfil the astronomical requirements for making LIRIS a front line IR instrument. We also discuss some peculiar effects which need to be taken into account in order to guarantee a correct astronomical performance. Among these effects we consider: variation of the dark signal with integration time, cross-talk, and persistance. We also discuss the variation of the bias level with detector temperature and the need to establish an extremely stable control of the temperature.

The Abu infrared imager consists of an ALADDIN 1024x1024 InSB array mounted in a cold-head cooled dewar capable of pumping down to operational temperature without cryogens, equipped with one-to-one transfer optics and an eight-position filter wheel. This simple system was operated at the South Pole on the CARA SPIREX telescope for two years, running in its second winter without trouble continuously for nine months. It was then modified slightly, mostly by inclusion of a higher quality ALADDIN II array, and used for commissioning of the Gemini South 8-meter telescope on Cerro Pachon in Chile. We discuss the lessons learned from the South Pole experiment, the changes made for operations on Gemini South, some results from both sites, and the future of this compact, reliable, and robust camera.

The availability of both large aperture telescopes and large format near-infrared (NIR) detectors are making wide-field NIR imaging a reality. We describe the Wide-field Infrared Camera (WIRC), a newly commissioned instrument that provides the Palomar 200-inch telescope with such an imaging capability. WIRC features a field-of-view (FOV) of 4.33 arcminutes on a side with its currently installed 1024-square Rockwell Hawaii-I NIR detector. A 2048-square Rockwell Hawaii-II NIR detector will be installed and commissioned later this year, in collaboration with Caltech, to give WIRC an 8.7 arcminute FOV on a side. WIRC mounts at the telescope's f/3.3 prime focus. The instrument's seeing-limited optical design, optimized for the JHK atmospheric bands, includes a 4-element refractive collimator, two 7-position filter wheels that straddle a Lyot stop, and a 5-element refractive f/3 camera. Typical seeing-limited point spread functions are slightly oversampled with a 0.25 arcsec per pixel plate scale at the detector. The entire optical train is contained within a cryogenic dewar with a 2.5 day hold-time. Entrance hatches at the top of the dewar allow access to the detector without disruption of the optics and optical alignment. The optical, mechanical, cryogenic, and electronic design of the instrument are described, a commissioning science image and performance analyses are presented.

We developed a near infrared simultaneous three-band (J, H and Ks) camera, SIRIUS. The design of SIRIUS is optimized to deep, large area surveys in the three IR bands. SIRIUS is equipped with three 1024 x 1024 HgCdTe (HAWAII) arrays, providing simultaneous three-band images. SIRIUS has obtained its first light on the UH 2.2 m telescope in August 2000. SIRIUS is now mounted on the IRSF 1.4 m telescope in Sutherland and is dedicated to deep survey in the southern sky from November 2000. On this telescope, SIRIUS provides 7'.8 x 7'.8 field of view with a pixel scale of 0".45 in all bands. The typical limiting magnitudes are J = 19.2 mag, H = 18.6 mag, Ks = 17.3 mag (15 min. integration, S/N = 10 σ). The effective exposure time (30 sec exposure for each frame) in an hour is about 37 minutes (60%) for each band. Both the instrument and the 1.4 m telescope are in operation.

The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is a 10-m class telescope presently under construction at Sutherland in South Africa. It is designed along the lines of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory in West Texas. SALTICAM will be the Acquisition Camera and simple Science Imager (ACSI) for this telescope. It will also function as the Verification Instrument (VI) to check the performance of the telescope during commissioning. In VI mode, SALTICAM will comprise a filter unit, shutter and cryostat with a 2x1 mosaic of 2k x 4k x 15 micron pixel CCDs. It will be mounted at the f/4.2 corrected prime focus of the telescope. In ACSI mode it will be fed by a folding flat located close to the exit pupil of the telescope. ACSI mode will have the same functional components as VI mode but it will in addition be garnished with focal conversion lenses to re-image the corrected prime focal plane at f/2. The lenses will be made from UV transmitting crystals as the wavelength range for which the instrument is designed will span 320 to 950 nm. In addition to acting as Verification Instrument and Acquisition Camera, SALTICAM will perform simple science imaging in support of other instruments, but will also have a high time resolution capability which is not widely available on large telescopes. This paper will describe the design of the instrument, emphasizing features of particular interest.

The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) will provide unique observing capabilities in terms of angular resolution and field size. The Fizeau combination of the beams from the two telescope apertures produces an intermediate image which shall be imaged onto a detector array. For this purpose, we designed an optical instrument, the thermal infrared wide-field camera described below. During its design, special care was taken to properly treat the synthetic aperture. The result is a catadioptric optical system with interchangable magnifications matched to the spectral regions around 10 and 20 μm. We present the optical design along with the image analysis.

MegaCam is a wide-field imaging camera built for the prime focus of the 3.6m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. This large detector has required new approaches from the hardware up to the instrument control system software. Safe control of the three sub-systems of the instrument (cryogenics, filters and shutter), measurement of the exposure time with an accuracy of 0.1%, identification of the filters and management of the internal calibration source are the major challenges that are taken up by the control system. Another challenge is to insure all these functionalities with the minimum space available on the telescope structure for the electrical hardware and a minimum number of cables to keep the highest reliability. All these requirements have been met with a control system which different elements are linked by a WorldFip fieldbus on optical fiber. The diagnosis and remote user support will be insured with an Engineering Control System station based on software developed on Internet JAVA technologies (applets, servlets) and connected on the fieldbus.

Many astronomical researches make use of narrow-band observations to isolate specific spectral features. We present a project to implement an imaging tunable interference filter, representing an observational facility that can greatly expand the capabilities of the instrumentation currently mounted at TNG.

MegaCam is an imaging CCD camera with a 1 square degree field of view for the new MegaPrime prime focus of the 3.6 meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. This CCD camera is fixed on an aluminum structure, called Camembert for its shape, housing a shutter, a filter system and a roll pitch system to tune the CCD mosaic plane. The shutter is made with 1 meter diameter honeycomb half disks that rotates to covers or exposes the CCD mosaic. On this shutter a calibration source is fixed to monitor the CCD and its electronics. The filter system is made of a jukebox with a capacity of eight 30 cm square filters and of a loading arm to place them under the field of view. The instrument was delivered to the CFHT observatory on June 10, 2002 and first light is scheduled in October 2002.

MegaCam is an imaging camera with a 1 square degree field of view for the new prime focus of the 3.6 meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. In building the MegaCam mosaic we encountered unprecedented challenges from both the large size of each CCD device (2K x 4.5K with 13.5 micron square pixels each) and the large size of the mosaic in which 40 devices have been assembled in a nearly 4-buttable edge manner on a cold plate. The CCD mosaic flatness of ± 16 μm has been optically checked at its nominal functioning temperature. The CCD mosaic is cooled at 153 K with a cryogenic unit; a close cycle pulsed tube with a power of 90 W at 140 K. A cold capacity, allows a slow warm-up during cooling shutdowns and a thermal dispatching leads to a temperature uniformity better than 3 K on the whole mosaic. The camera cryostat is designed in order to have easy access to the CCDs. The vacuum needed to avoid CCD contamination, leaded us to the use of low out-gassing materials in the cryostat. The instrument was delivered to the observatory on June 10, 2002 and first light is scheduled in October 2002.

Wide field-of-view, high-resolution near-infrared cameras on 4-m class telescopes have been identified by the astronomical community as critical instrumentation needs in the era of 8-m and larger telescopes. Acting as survey instruments, they will provide the input source discoveries for large-telescope follow-up observations. The NOAO Extremely Wide Field Infrared Mosaic (NEWFIRM) imaging instrument will serve this need within the US system of facilities. NEWFIRM is being designed for the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) 4-m telescopes (Mayall at KPNO and Blanco at CTIO). NEWFIRM covers a 28 x 28 arcmin field of view over the 1-2.4 μm wavelength range with a 4k x 4k pixel detector mosaic assembled from 2k x 2k modules. Pixel scale is 0.4 arcsec/pixel. Data pipelining and archiving are integral elements of the instrument system. We present the science drivers for NEWFIRM, and describe its optical, mechanical, electronic, and software components. By the time this paper is presented, NEWFIRM will be in the preliminary design stage, with first light expected on the Mayall telescope in 2005.

The Six Degree-of-Freedom (6DOF) positioner was developed to position the four off-axis conic mirrors in Altair (Gemini** North's facility adaptive optics system). This positioner takes a unique approach to 6DOF positioning by combining two 3DOF parallel mechanisms in series to create a hybrid mechanism. The mechanism design provides a number of benefits including small size, simple adjustment, position locking, relatively simple kinematics and repeatable removal and replacement of optical components. The 6DOF positioner is capable of positioning optics at the micron level in translation and at the arcsecond level in rotation. It also maintains the position of the optics to a few microns with changing gravity vector. The position of an attached optical component can be adjusted using a computer program to provide precision adjustment about an arbitrary coordinate system. However, the arrangement of the adjustments are such that any desired motion can be made with a single actuator or with a sensible combination of actuators. This is unlike other 6DOF positioning solutions like a Stewart Platform in which all 6DOF are completely coupled making it impossible to move the platform in any desired direction without moving all six actuators. This paper will present the design of the positioner, a kinematic analysis of the mechanism and a discussion about the effectiveness of the positioner in the optical alignment of Altair.

The Large Binocular Camera (LBC) is a double prime focus station to be mounted on the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). The two channels, called Blue and Red, are optimized for the UB and VRIZ bands respectively and are characterized by two optical correctors with very fast focal ratio (F/1.45) and challenging optical and mechanical specifications. We present here a review of the optical and mechanical design of both the optical correctors and report on the current status of the manufacturing and integration.

In order to extend the US Naval Observatory (USNO) small-angle astrometric capabilities to near infrared wavelengths we have designed and manufactured a 1024 x 1024 InSb re-imaging infrared camera equipped with an array selected from the InSb ALADDIN (Advanced Large Area Detector Development in InSb) development program and broadband and narrowband 0.8 - 3.8 μm filters. Since the USNO 1.55-m telescope is optimized for observations at visible wavelengths with an oversized secondary mirror and sky baffles, the straylight rejection capabilities of the ASTROCAM Lyot stop and baffles are of critical importance for its sensitivity and flat- fielding capabilities. An Offner relay was chosen for the heart of the system and was manufactured from the same melt of aluminum alloy to ensure homologous contraction from room temperature to 77 K. A blackened cone was installed behind the undersized hole (the Lyot stop) in the Offner secondary. With low distortion, a well-sampled point spread function, and a large field of view, the system is well suited for astrometry. It is telecentric, so any defocus will not result in a change of image scale. The DSP-based electronics allow readout of the entire array with double-correlated sampling in 0.19 seconds, but shorter readout is possible with single sampling or by reading out only small numbers of subarrays. In this paper we report on the optical, mechanical, and electronic design of the system and present images and results on the sensitivity and astrometric stability obtained with the system, now operating routinely at the 1.55-m telescope with a science-grade ALADDIN array.

Micromachined Fabry-Perot tunable filters with a large clear aperture (12.5 to 40 mm) are being developed as an optical component for wide-field imaging spectroscopy. This program applies silicon micromachining fabrication techniques to miniaturize Fabry-Perot filters for astronomical science instruments. The filter assembly consists of two reflector plates that form a tunable Fabry-Perot etalon. One plate is fixed and the second plate is free to move along the optical axis on silicon springs. The moving plate is actuated electrostatically by capacitance pads on the stationary and moving plates. To reduce mass, both reflectors are fabricated by applying optical coatings to a thin freestanding silicon nitride film held flat in drumhead tension. In this paper, we discuss the etalon design, electromechanical modeling, fabrication, and initial results. In the current design, the transmission aperture is 11.0 mm in diameter, the moving plate is 26.3 mm in diameter, and the stationary plate is 32.6 mm in diameter. The plates and springs are nominally 350 μm thick, the electrical and mechanical spacing between plates is 18 μm, and the uncoated optical spacing is 15 μm.

The AEOS Burst Camera (ABC) has been funded for development and construction by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The ABC will provide rapid, deep observations of gamma-ray burst (GRB) optical counterparts. The camera is expected to be installed on the 3.67 meter AEOS telescope, at the Air Force Maui Optical and Supercomputing (AMOS) site in mid-2002, with operations to commence shortly thereafter. We expect to conduct six observations of GRB optical counterparts per year. We describe the design of the camera, and the planned mode of rapid GRB counterpart observation to be conducted at the AMOS facility. Results of the initial operations of the camera will also be reported.

We present the dual IR camera CID for the 2.12 m telescope of the Observatorio Astronomico Nacional de Mexico, IA-UNAM. The system consists of two separate cameras/spectrographs that operate in different regions of the IR spectrum. In the near IR, CID comprises a direct imaging camera with wide band filters, a CVF, and a low resolution spectrograph employing an InSb 256 x 256 detector. In the mid IR, CID uses a BIB 128 x 128 detector for direct imaging in 10 and 20 microns. Optics and mechanics of CID were developed at IR-Labs (Tucson). The electronics was developed by R. Leach (S. Diego). General design, construction of auxiliary optics (oscillating secondary mirror), necessary modifications and optimization of the electronics, and acquisition software were carried out at OAN/ UNAM. The compact design of the instruments allow them to share a single dewar and the cryogenics system.

The MONSOON Image Acquisition System has been designed to meet the need for scalable, multichannel, high-speed image acquisition required for the next-generation optical and infared detectors and mosaic projects currently under development at NOAO as described in other papers at this proceeding such as ORION, NEWFIRM, QUOTA, ODI and LSST. These new systems with their large scale (64 to 2000 channels) and high performance (up to 1Gbyte/s) raise new challenges in terms of communication bandwidth, data storage and data processing requirements which are not adequately met by existing astronomical controllers. In order to meet this demand, new techniques for not only a new detector controller, but rather a new image acquisition architecture, have been defined. These extremely large scale imaging systems also raise less obvious concerns in previously neglected areas of controller design such as physical size and form factor issues, power dissipation and cooling near the telescope, system assembly/test/ integration time, reliability, and total cost of ownership. At NOAO we have taken efforts to look outside of the astronomical community for solutions found in other disciplines to similar classes of problems. A large number of the challenges raised by these system needs are already successfully being faced in other areas such as telecommunications, instrumentation and aerospace. Efforts have also been made to use true commercial off the shelf (COTS) system elements, and find truly technology independent solutions for a number of system design issues whenever possible. The Monsoon effort is a full-disclosure development effort by NOAO in collaboration with the CARA ASTEROID project for the benefit of the astronomical community.

The optical performance of a large, optically fast, all-refracting spectrograph camera is extremely sensitive to potential temperature changes which might occur during an extended signle observation, over the duration of an observing run, and/or on seasonal time scales. A small temprature change, even at the level of a few degrees C, will lead to changs in the rerfractive indices of the glasses and the coupling medium, changes in the lens-element geometries and in the dimensions of the lens cell. These effects combine in a design-specific manner to cause potential changes of focus and magnification within the camera as well as inherent loss of image quality. We have used an optical design technique originally developed for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's BINOSPEC instrument in order to produce a construction optical design for the Carnegie IMACS Short camera. This design combines the above-mentioned temperature-dependent parameter variations in such a way that their net effect upon focus and magnification is passively reduced to negligible residuals, without the use of high-expansion plastics, "negative-c.t.e." mechanisms or active control within the lens cell. Simultaneously, the design is optimized for best inherent image quality at any temperature within the designated operating range. The optically-athermalized IMACS Short camera is under construction. We present its quantitative optical design together with our assessment of its expected performance over a (T = -4.0 to +20.0) C temperature range.

Occultation is potentially a powerful tool for high-resolution astronomy. It can reach about a few milli-arcsec (mas) by lunar occultation observation and 0.1 mas by that of main-belt asteroids. Photon noise limits the resolution. If we use large telescope in order to increase the number of photons received by a telescope, the fringe pattern that is projected on the earth is averaged over the pupil and the visibility will decrease. I propose to use pupil-segmented method and its performance for lunar occultation. The optimum subaperture size is 2-4 m for lunar occultation. This method is effective for large (> 8-10m) telescope. We can resolve in 6 mas for 16 mag star in > 3 σ noise level using 8 m telescope.

We present the near infrared camera REM-IR that will operate aboard the REM telescope, intended as a fully automated instrument to follow-up Gamma Ray Burst, triggered mainly by satellites, such as HETE II, INTEGRAL, AGILE and SWIFT. REM-IR will perform high efficiency imaging of the prompt infrared afterglow of GRB and, together with the optical spectrograph ROSS, will cover simultaneously a wide wavelength range, allowing a better understanding of the intriguing scientific case of GRB. Due to the scientific and technological requirements of the REM project, some innovative solutions has been adopted in REM-IR.

We present a status report of the R&D project INCA, aimed to create in a selected group of Italian SME the expertise to build high quality Infrared instrumentation for Astronomy. The INCA consortium is currently building a fully functional test NIR-camera (1-5 μm) exploring any sort of innovation in the field of optics (new materials, aspheric surfaces), mechanics/cryogenics (new concept in lens holding, light-weighted structures, cryo-pumps) and electronics (new chip controllers). The camera will be installed for testing at one of the major telescope facility available to the Italian community and its performances in true astronomical applications evaluated.

We present the design of a compact two-channel CCD-camera for the 0.8 m Cassegrain telescope operated at the Wendelstein Observatory. To achieve a high efficiency this camera is equipped with two channels, operating in the wavelength range of 400 - 540 nm and 570 - 900 nm, respectively. Each channel is provided with a filter slider for three positions, an independent photometric shutter, and a 2k x 2k CCD (80% peak efficiency). The camera can simultaneously record a red and a blue image of its 10.7' x 10.7' field of view. In addition it has an offset guider and supports robotic operation: Active cooling provides the operating temperature of 160 K avoiding the use of liquid nitrogen. Both CCDs share a single cryostat and can be aligned during operation. The complete vacuum control including pumping and cryopump cleaning can be operated remotely.

The Laboratoire d'Astrophysique Experimentale (LAE) at the Universite de Montreal has designed and built several near-infrared cameras/spectrometers in the last decade for the Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic (OMM), the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) and the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics (HIA). These instruments have required innovative solutions for cryogenic electro-mechanical controls. This paper presents cryogenic motors, bearings, gears, epoxies and positioning/sensing devices at the heart of these cryo-mechanisms. In particular, the paper will focus on a new ball plunger with integrated Hall effect sensor, which can be used both as a mechanical detent and analog position encoder.

The first second-generation instrument for the Hobby-Eberly telescope is a novel J band camera (LRS-J) which mates to the existing low resolution spectrograph (LRS). This camera uses the existing LRS longslit and mutltiobject units as well as the LRS five element collimator but uses its own J optimized volume holographic grisms, f/1 cryogenically cooled camera, and readout electronics built around a Rockwell HAWAII-1 array. We minimized the development time of the controller by reusing as much of the existing framework as possible. The modular design of the existing LRS CCD controller allows us to modify only the clock-driver and penthouse (pre-amplifier) modules. Furthermore, we were able to use existing multilayer circuit boards already fabricated for these two modules. Thus, the LRS-J controller required only the substitution of components on two modules and the design of a new header (dewar) board to fit the HAWAII-1 socket. With these modifications, based on its perfomance with CCDs, we predict a noise and crosstalk performance at the most competitive level.

Challenges in fabrication and testing have historically limited the choice of surfaces available for the design of reflective optical instruments. Spherical and conic mirrors are common, but, for future science instruments, more degrees of freedom will be necessary to meet performance and packaging requirements. These instruments will be composed of surfaces of revolution located far off-axis with large spherical departure, and some designs will even require asymmetric surface profiles. We describe the design and diamond machining of seven aluminum mirrors: three rotationally symmetric, off-axis conic sections, one off-axis biconic, and three flat mirror designs. These mirrors are for the Infrared Multi-Object Spectrometer instrument, a facility instrument for the Kitt Peak National Observatory’s Mayall Telescope (3.8 m) and a pathfinder for the future Next Generation Space Telescope multi-object spectrograph. The symmetric mirrors include convex and concave prolate and oblate ellipsoids, and range in aperture from 92 x 77 mm to 284 x 264 mm and in f-number from 0.9 to 2.4. The biconic mirror is concave and has a 94 x 76 mm aperture, (formula available in paper) and is decentered by -2 mm in x and 227 mm in y. The mirrors have an aspect ratio of approximately 6:1. The fabrication tolerances for surface error are < 63.3 nm RMS figure error and < 10 nm RMS microroughness. The mirrors are attached to the instrument bench using semi-kinematic, integral flexure mounts and optomechanically aligned to the instrument coordinate system using fiducial marks and datum surfaces. We also describe in-process profilometry and optical testing.

The Infrared Multi-Object Spectrometer (IRMOS) is a facility-class instrument for the Kitt Peak National Observatory 4 and 2.l meter telescopes. IRMOS is a near-IR (0.8-2.5 μm) spectrometer and operates at ~80 K. The 6061-T651 aluminum bench and mirrors constitute an athermal design. The instrument produces simultaneous spectra at low- to mid-resolving power (R = λ/Δλ = 300-3000) of ~100 objects in its 2.8×2.0 arcmin field. We describe ambient and cryogenic optical testing of the IRMOS mirrors across a broad range in spatial frequency (figure error, mid-frequency error, and microroughness). The mirrors include three rotationally symmetric, off-axis conic sections, one off-axis biconic, and several flat fold mirrors. The symmetric mirrors include convex and concave prolate and oblate ellipsoids. They range in aperture from 94×86 mm to 286×269 mm and in f-number from 0.9 to 2.4. The biconic mirror is concave and has a 94×76 mm aperture, R_x=377 mm, k_x=0.0778, R_y=407 mm, and k_y=0.1265 and is decentered by -2 mm in X and 227 mm in Y. All of the mirrors have an aspect ratio of approximately 6:1. The surface error fabrication tolerances are < 10 nm RMS microroughness, best effort for mid-frequency error, and < 63.3 nm RMS figure error. Ambient temperature (~293 K) testing is performed for each of the three surface error regimes, and figure testing is also performed at ~80 K. Operation of the ADE PhaseShift MicroXAM white light interferometer (micro-roughness) and the Bauer Model 200 profilometer (mid-frequency error) is described. Both the sag and conic values of the aspheric mirrors make these tests challenging. Figure testing is performed using a Zygo GPI interferometer, custom computer generated holograms (CGH), and optomechanical alignment fiducials. Cryogenic CGH null testing is discussed in detail. We discuss complications such as the change in prescription with temperature and thermal gradients. Correction for the effect of the dewar window is also covered. We discuss the error budget for the optical test and alignment procedure. Data reduction is accomplished using commercial optical design and data analysis software packages. Results from CGH testing at cryogenic temperatures are encouraging thus far.

The Infrared Multi-Object Spectrometer (IRMOS) is a facility instrument for the Kitt Peak National Observatory 4 and 2.1 meter telescopes. IRMOS is a near-IR (0.8 - 2.5 μm) spectrometer with low- to mid-resolving power (R = 300 - 3000). The IRMOS spectrometer produces simultaneous spectra of ~100 objects in its 2.8 x 2.0 arcmin field of view using a commercial MEMS multi-mirror array device (MMA) from Texas Instruments. The IRMOS optical design consists of two imaging subsystems. The focal reducer images the focal plane of the telescope onto the MMA field stop, and the spectrograph images the MMA onto the detector. We describe the breadboard subsystem alignment method and imaging performance of the focal reducer. This testing provides verification of the optomechanical alignment method and a measurement of near-angle scattered light due to mirror small-scale surface error. Interferometric measurements of subsystem wavefront error serve to verify alignment and are accomplished using a commercial, modified Twyman-Green laser unequal path interferometer. Image testing is then performed for the central field point. A mercury-argon pencil lamp provides the spectral line at 546.1 nm, and a CCD camera is the detector. We use the Optical Surface Analysis Code to predict the point-spread function and its effect on instrument slit transmission, and our breadboard test results validate this prediction. Our results show that scattered light from the subsystem and encircled energy is slightly worse than expected. Finally, we perform component level image testing of the MMA, and our results show that scattered light from the MMA is of the same magnitude as that of the focal reducer.

We report on the status of AVES, the Adaptive-optics Visual Echelle Spectrograph proposed for the secondary port of the Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System (NAOS) recently installed at the VLT. AVES is an intermediate resolution (R ≈ 16,000) high-efficiency fixed- format echelle spectrograph which operates in the spectral band 500 - 1,000 nm. In addition to a high intrinsic efficiency, comparable to that of ESI at Keck II, it takes advantage of the adaptive optics correction provided by NAOS to reduce the sky and detector contribution in background-limited observations of weak sources, thus allowing a further magnitude gain with respect to comparable non-adaptive optics spectrographs. Simulations show that the instrument will be capable of reaching a magnitude V = 22.5 at S/N > 10 in two hours, two magnitudes weaker than GIRAFFE at the same resolution and 3 magnitudes weaker than the higher resolution UVES spectrograph. Imaging and coronographic functions have also been implemented in the design. We present the results of the final design study and we dicuss the technical and operational issues related to its implementation at the VLT as a visitor instrument. We also discuss the possibility of using a scaled-up non-adaptive optics version of the same design as an element of a double- or triple-arm intermediate-resolution spectrograph for the VLT. Such an option looks attractive in the context of a high-efficiency large-bandwidth (320 - 1,500 nm) spectrograph ("fast-shooter") being considered by ESO as a 2nd-generation VLT instrument.

The Inamori-Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) features a 8K x 8K, 6.7 Megapixel detector system, which is mounted in a cryogenic vacuum vessel with a combination of features that are unique among the current generation of astronomical multi-detector array systems. Closed-cycle coolers, commercial stages for flexure compensation, flexure control detectors, array focus control, composite thermal isolation truss and other features are described.

Observations of the prompt afterglow of Gamma Ray Burst events are unanimously considered of paramount importance for GRB science and cosmology. Such observations at NIR wavelengths are even more promising allowing one to monitor high-z Ly-α absorbed bursts as well as events occurring in dusty star-forming regions. In these pages we present REM (Rapid Eye Mount), a fully robotized fast slewing telescope equipped with a high throughput NIR (Z, J, H, K) camera dedicated to detecting the prompt IR afterglow. REM can discover objects at extremely high redshift and trigger large telescopes to observe them. The REM telescope will simultaneously feed ROSS (REM Optical Slitless spectrograph) via a dichroic. ROSS will intensively monitor the prompt optical continuum of GRB afterglows. The synergy between the REM-IR camera and the Ross spectrograph makes REM a powerful observing tool for any kind of fast transient phenomena. Beside its ambitious scientific goals, REM is also technically challenging since it represent the first attempt to locate a NIR camera on a small telescope providing, with ROSS, unprecedented simultaneous wavelength coverage on a telescope of this size.

This paper provides an overview of the “Scientific Detectors Workshop 2002”, a 5 day meeting held on the Big Island of Hawaii in June 2002. The purpose of this workshop, which is held every 3 years, is to bring together the leading scientists and engineers working in the field of optical and infrared detectors. The 125 participants came from 14 countries on 6 continents and included representation from every major detector designer/manufacturer and 27 astronomical observatories. This paper is a synthesis of the information presented at the workshop. In order to provide context, we begin with an introduction to the use of optical/IR detectors in astronomy and the basic steps in light detection. We then present the major developments in optical and infrared detectors. We conclude with information about the 2002 workshop format and give advance notice of the next workshop, scheduled for 2005.

The desire for larger and larger format arrays for astronomical observatories -- both ground and space based -- has fueled the development of detector, readout, and hybrid Focal Plane Array (FPA) technology that has paved the way for later development of tactical and strategic arrays for military applications. Since 1994, Raytheon has produced megapixel readouts and FPAs for Infrared Astronomy. In 1999 Raytheon demonstrated a revolutionary approach to photolithography called Reticle Image Composition Lithography (RICL) that opened the door to very large format FPAs in state of the art sub-micron CMOS processes. The first readout processed using the patented RICL technique was a 4.2 megapixel readout for astronomy. We present the design and performance of several 4.2 megapixel (2048 x 2048) readout arrays for visible and infrared astronomy applications. The first of these arrays are fabricated in a workhorse 2 μm CMOS process that is optimized for low temperature operation (down to as low as 6 Kelvin). Most recently Raytheon has developed a scaleable 2,048 x 2,048 high density array for several ground based astronomical applications. This array can be manufactured in any m x n multiple of a basic 1024 (V) x 512 (H) pixel array core. The primary design is a 2 x 4 array to yield a 2,048 x 2,048 format array. This same design can be extended to at least a 4,096 x 4,096 format array -- an incredible 16.7 megapixel array! These readouts are compatible with a wide range of detector types including InSb, HgCdTe, and Si detectors. The use of hybrid technology -- even for the visible wavebands -- allows 100% optical fill factors to be achieved. The design and performance of these megapixel class detectors, readouts, and FPAs will be presented.

Silicon Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) are the ubiquitous detector of choice for most ground based optical cameras given their high QE, low readout noise, good spatial resolution and large array size. However, they are integrating detectors, and as such have a limited temporal resolution determined by the readout frame rate. Imaging photon counters, on the other hand, can determine the location and arrival time of an individual detected photon which lends itself to studies of the intrinsic variability of astronomical sources. This topic is of fundamental importance, especially for the case of compact objects in stellar binary systems, stellar flares, and accretion disk phenomena. Most of these timing observations are currently performed by satellite-born X-ray instruments, but similar data can also be obtained from ground-based observatories at visible wavelengths using photon counting detectors. In this paper we review the recent and future improvements in the performance of imaging, photon counters, especially their optical QE, array size, spatial and temporal resolution and dark counting rates. We will compare them to conventional CCD devices and discuss the observational applications for which either or both can excel. We find that for certain applications (such as high time resolution observations, faint spectra and wavefront sensors for adaptive optics) imaging photon counting detectors can provide observations of superior signal-to-noise to CCD's.

Superconducting Tunnel Junctions (STJs) have been extensively investigated as photon detectors covering the range from near-infrared to X-ray energies. A 6x6 array of Tantalum junctions has already been used in an optical spectro-photometer. With this camera, the European Space Agency has performed multiple astronomical observations of optical sources using the William Herschel 4.2m telescope at La Palma. Following the success of this program, we are now developing a second generation camera. The goals of this program are to increase the field of view of the instrument from 4"x4" to 11"x9", to optimize IR rejection filters, possibly extending the 'red' response to ~1μm and to increase the electronics readout speed. For these purposes, we are developing a new Superconducting Tunnel Junction Array consisting of 10x12 Tantalum/Aluminium devices as well as an improved readout system. In this paper, we review the instrument's architecture and describe the performance of the new detector.

The Large Binocular Camera (LBC) is the double optical imager that will be installed at the prime foci of the Large Binocular Telescope (2x8.4 m). Four Italian observatories are cooperating in this project: Rome (CCD Camera), Arcetri-Padua (Optical Corrector) and Trieste (Software). LBC is composed by two separated large field (27 arcmin FOV) cameras, one optimized for the UBV bands and the second for the VRIZ bands. An optical corrector balances the aberrations induced by the fast (F#=1.14) parabolic primary mirror of LBT, assuring that the 80% of the PSF encircled energy falls inside one pixel for more of the 90% of the field. Each corrector uses six lenses with the first having a diameter of 80cm and the third with an aspherical surface. Two filter wheels allow the use of 8 filters. The two channels have similar optical designs satisfying the same requirements, but differ in the lens glasses: fused silica for the "blue" arm and BK7 for the "red" one. The two focal plane cameras use an array of four 4290 chips (4.5x2 K) provided by Marconi optimized for the maximum quantum efficiency (85%) in each channel. The sampling is 0.23 arcseconds/pixel. The arrays are cooled by LN2 cryostats assuring 24 hours of operation. Here we present a description of the project and its current status including a report about the Blue camera and its laboratory tests. This instrument is planned to be the first light instrument of LBT.

We describe an instrument that is capable of taking simultaneous images at one optical (UBVRI) and one near-infrared (JHK) wavelength. The instrument uses relatively simple optics and a dichroic to image the same field on to an optical CCD and an HgCdTe array. The mechanical and thermal design is similar to previous instruments built by our group and the array controllers are based on the same architecture. The instrument has been in use for the past four years on the CTIO/Yale 1m telescope in Chile and has an excellent operational/reliability record. A number of notable science results have been obtained with the instrument; especially interesting are several photometric monitoring projects that have been possible, since the instrument is available every night on the telescope.

Only two months ago, in June 2002, a workshop on scientific detectors for astronomy was held in Waimea, where for the first time both experts on optical CCD's and infrared detectors working at the cutting edge of focal plane technology gathered. An overview of new developments in optical detectors such as CCD's and CMOS devices will be given elsewhere in these proceedings. This paper will focus on infrared detector developments carried out at the European Southern Observatory ESO and will also include selected highlights of infrared focal plane technology as presented at the Waimea workshop. Three main detector developments for ground based astronomers are currently pushing infrared focal plane technology. In the near infrared from 1 to 5 μm two technologies, both aiming for buttable 2K x 2K mosaics, will be reviewed, namely InSb and HgCdTe grown by LPE or MBE on Al₂O₃, Si or CdZnTe substrates. Blocked impurity band Si:As arrays cover the mid infrared spectral range from 8 to 28 μm. Since the video signal of infrared arrays, contrary to CCD's, is DC coupled, long exposures with IR arrays are extremely susceptible to drifts and low frequency noise pick-up down to the mHz regime. New techniques to reduce thermal drifts and suppress low frequency nosie with on-chip reference pixels will be discussed. The need for the development of small format low noise sensors for adaptive optics and interferometry will be pointed out.

Orion is a program to develop a 2048x2048 infrared focal plane using InSb PV detectors. It is the natural follow-on to the successful Aladdin 1024x1024 program, which was the largest IR focal plane of the 90's. Although the pixels are somewhat smaller than Aladdin, the overall focal plane is over 50mm in size and for the present is the largest IR focal plane of the 21^st century. The work is being done by Raytheon Infrared Operations (RIO but better known as SBRC) by many of the same people who created the Aladdin focal plane. The design is very similar to the successful Aladdin design with the addition of reference pixels to lower noise and drift effects in long integrations. So far we have made five focal plane modules with hybridized InSb detectors. In this paper we will discuss the unique design features of this device as well as present test data taken from these devices.

In November 2001, the VLT has been equipped for the first time with an adaptive optics system, NAOS. NAOS has been designed to provide good image quality over a wide range of conditions, allowing thus a large variety of astrophysical programs, from Solar System to extragalactic studies. NAOS feeds a camera CONICA which provides imaging, coronagraphic, spectroscopic and polarimetric capabilities between 1 and 5 microns. NAOS and CONICA (hereafter NACO) have been commissioned over the past months. We present in this paper the first images recorded by NACO during the commissioning period, illustrating the capabilities of this new instrument.

The Adaptive Optics NIR Instrument NAOS-CONICA has been commissioned at the VLT (UT4) between November 2001 and March 2002. After summarizing the observational capabilities of this multimode instrument in combination with the powerful AO-system, we will present first on sky results of the instrumental performance for several non-direct imaging modes: High spatial resolution slit-spectroscopy in the optical and thermal NIR region has been tested. For compact sources below 2 arcsec extension, Wollaston prism polarimetry is used. For larger objects the linear polarization pattern can be analyzed by wire grids down to the diffraction limit. Coronographic masks are applied to optimize imaging and polarimetric capabilities. The cryogenic Fabry-Perot Interferometer in combination with an 8m-telescope AO-system is shown to be a powerful tool for imaging spectroscopy (3D-scans).

The Gemini Near-Infrared Imager (NIRI) has now been completed and is in operation at the telescope. This paper discusses the basic design of the instrument and a number of particularly interesting technical issues. NIRI offers three different pixel scales to match different operating modes of the Gemini telescope and allows polarimetric and spectroscopic observations. It is equipped with an infrared wavefront sensor to allow tip-tilt correction even in highly obscured regions.

We introduce a near-infrared camera named coronagraph imager with adaptive optics (CIAO) mounted on the Subaru 8m telescope. Combined with the Subaru 36 elements adaptive optics (AO), CIAO can produce nearly diffraction limited image with approximately 0.07 arcsec FWHM at K band and high dynamic range imaging with approximately 10 mag difference at 1 arcsec separation under typical seeing conditions. We have carried out performance tests of imaging without and with coronagraph mask since its first light observation held on 2000 February. Because of limited weather conditions, the performance under best seeing conditions has not been tested yet. At a typical natural seeing condition of 0.4 - 0.8 arcsec, halo component of PSF using 0.2 - 0.8 arcsec mask can be reduced up to 70% comparing with that without mask using AO. Even after correction, residual wave front error has typically 1.2 rad² which corresponds to the Strehl ratio of approximately 0.3 at K band. Such wave front errors degrades the image quality; this is a common problem of coronagraph on the ground-based telescope with non high-order AO. Nevertheless we emphasize that there are various advantages on our coronagraph: the clean PSF of CIAO, reduction of readout noise, and less effect of detector memory problem. Compared with coronagraphs on smaller telescopes, the PSF shape is sharper and it brings higher detectability of sources around bright objects.

The Near Infrared Coronagraphic Imager for Gemini South (NICI) is a dual beam coronagraphic camera operating over the 1.0 to 5.5 micrometer wavelength range with a dedicated adaptive optics system. NICI target science, design and capabilities will be described as an introduction to this instrument slated for deployment in mid 2005.

In 1996, it was proposed to build a near-infrared imager for the 3.8-m UK Infrared Telescope in Hawaii, to exploit the 1024 pixel format detectors that were then becoming available. In order to achieve a fast delivery, the instrument was kept simple and existing designs were reused or modified where possible. UFTI was delivered within 2.5 years of the project start. The instrument is based around a 1k Rockwell Hawaii detector and a LSR Astrocam controller and uses the new Mauna Kea optimized J,H,K filter set along with I and Z broad-band filters and several narrow-band line filters. The instrument is cooled by a CTI cry-cooler, while the mechanisms are operated by cold, internal, Bergelahr stepping motors. On UKIRT it can be coupled to a Fabry-Perot etalon for tunable narrow-band imaging at K, or a waveplate for imaging polarimetry through 1-2.5 μm; the cold analyzer is a Barium Borate Wollaston prism. UFTI was designed to take full advantage of the good image quality delivered by UKIRT on conclusion of the upgrades program, and has a fine scale of 0.09 arcsec/pixel. It is used within the UKIRT observatory environment and was the first instrument integrated into ORAC, the Observatory Reduction and Acquisition Control System. Results obtained during instrument characterization in the lab and over the last 3 years on UKIRT are presented, along with performance figures. UFTI has now been used on UKIRT for several hundred nights, and aspects of instrument performance are discussed.

The University of Florida is developing a mid-infrared camera for the 10.4-meter Gran Telescopio CANARIAS. CanariCam has four science modes and two engineering modes, which use the same 320 x 240-pixel, arsenic-doped silicon, blocked-impurity-band detector from Raytheon. Each mode can be remotely selected quickly during an observing sequence. The pixel scale is 0.08 arcsec, resulting in Nyquist sampling of the diffraction-limited point-spread-function at 8 μm, the shortest wavelength for which CanariCam is optimized. The total available field of view for imaging is 26 arcsec x 19 arcsec. The primary science mode will be diffraction-limited imaging using one of several available spectral filters in the 10 μm (8-14 μm) and 20 μm (16-25 μm) atmospheric windows. Any one of four plane gratings can be inserted for low and moderate-resolution (R = 100 - 1300) slit spectroscopy in the 10 and 20-μm regions. Insertion of appropriate field and pupil stops converts the camera into a coronagraph, while insertion of an internal rotating half-wave plate, a field mask, and a Wollaston prism converts the camera into a dual-beam polarimeter.

In this paper, we present the status of VISIR, the mid-infrared instrument to be installed in 2003 at the Cassegrain focus of MELIPAL, one of the four 8-meter telescopes of the European Very Large Telescope. This cryogenic instrument, optimized for diffraction-limited performance in both mid-infrared atmospheric windows (N and Q band), combines imaging capabilities over a field up to about 1x1 arcmin², and long-slit (0.5 arcmin) grating spectroscopy with various spectral resolutions up to R=25000 at 10 μm and 12500 at 20 μm. The contract to design and build VISIR was signed in November 1996 between the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and a French-Dutch consortium of institutes led by Service d'Astrophysique of Commissariat l'Energie Atomique (CEA). A key step in the project has been passed in December 2001, with the first infrared images in the laboratory and in April 2002 with the first infrared spectra in the laboratory. We present the results of the laboratory tests of the instrument, which is scheduled to be shipped to Paranal at the end of 2002.

The use of spectrographs with telescopes having high order adaptive optics (AO) systems offers the possibility of achieving near diffraction-limited spectral resolution on ground-based telescopes, as well as important advantages for instrument design. The small stellar image diameters obtained with adaptively corrected systems allow high resolution without a large loss of light at the spectrograph entrance slit, as well as greater spectral coverage per exposure. The adaptively corrected echelle spectrograph (ACES), designed at Steward Observatory for a spectral resolution R ≈ 200,000, couples the telescope pupil to the instrument with a 10 mm diameter near single-mode optical fiber. Initial observations at the 2.5m telescope on Mt. Wilson validated the concept of achieving high spectral resolution with an adaptively corrected telescope and fiber coupled spectrograph. However the transmission of multiple modes in the fiber lead to a wavelength-dependent variation in illumination that made flat fielding impossible. In this paper we describe instrument design improvements, the installation and testing of a new CCD detector, and testing aimed at understanding and eliminating the fiber-related transmission problems to permit science quality imaging.

Large two-dimensional imaging arrays, spanning infrared focal plane arrays through visible CCDs, usually require extensive support electronics. We present an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that combines, on a single chip, all necessary functions to operate CMOS-based focal plane arrays and provide digital data from 12 to 16 bits. The interface to the external world is completely digital, thus eliminating the complexity of dealing with sensitive analog voltages. The ASIC's first application is for use with the HAWAII-2RG (a 2048 x 2048 multiplexer specifically optimized for the Next Generation Space Telescope). Due to its flexibility, it can control other FPAs and SCAs not requiring clocks or biases higher than 3.3 V. The low-power, system-on-chip controller comprises a 16-bit microcontroller, program and data memory, clock generator, bias generator, 36 programmable gain amplifiers (0 to 27 dB), thirty-six 12-bit 10 MHz A/D converters, thirty-six 16-bit 500 kHz A/D converters, glue logic and programmable I/O pads. When configured for NGST, we estimate ≤ 8.4 mW continuous power for the 2k x 2k FPA and ASIC. The programmable ASIC, dubbed SIDECAR, for System for Image Digitization, Enhancement, Control And Retrieval, is likely an optimum "back-end" solution for other high-performance instruments.

In this paper, we present the final design of the optical train of WIRCAM, a wide-field infrared camera to be installed in early 2004 at the prime focus of CFHT. This cryogenic camera, optimized for J, H and K operating region, used a 4k x 4k IR detector mosaic fed by a single optical train. The sky will be imaged onto the focal plane at an optical speed of F/3.5 yielding an image scale of 0.3 arcsecond per 18 μm pixel. The design image quality is 0.30 arcsecond 50% diffraction encircled energy over the central 20 arcmin field and no images worse than 0.35 arcsecond over the 29.7 arcminute diameter camera field. The optical design distortion at the corners is less than 1%. The WIRCAM camera have a lyot stop at the telescope image pupil in order to mask background radiation coming from external structures. The image of the pupil is sufficiently sharp for background elimination and impose not more than 2% loss of light from the sky in the K spectral band. We also present an optimization of AR coating for IR based camera weighted by MK atmospheric transmission. We discuss the impact of this coating design method on various camera throughput. We include an efficient technique for ghost analysis based on the detector image. We demonstrate that our design meets the performance requirements from an optical and practical point of view.

The Infrared Multi-Object Spectrometer (IRMOS) is an innovative near-IR instrument approaching completion. IRMOS will provide R~300, 1000, and 3000 spectroscopy in the J, H, and K bands plus R~1000 in Z together with imaging in all bands. Using a Texas Instruments 848x600 element DMD as a micro mirror array to synthesize slits in an imaging spectrometer obtaining up to 100 simultaneous spectra will be possible. Designed for the KPNO 4 and 2.2 meter telescopes, IRMOS will provide 3x2 and 6x4 arc minute fields of view on these telescopes. IRMOS is constructed mainly of 6061 Aluminum using diamond machined optics which has permitted a complex, compact, all reflective optical design. We describe the design and status of IRMOS, summarize its expected performance, and discuss several interesting aspects of its development and the use of TI DMD devices. IRMOS is a joint project of the Space Telescope Science Institute, the NASA Next Generation Space Telescope Project, and the Kitt Peak National Observatory.

LUCIFER (LBT NIR-Spectroscopic Utility with Camera and Integral-Field Unit for Extragalactic Research) is a NIR spectrograph and imager for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) on Mt. Graham, Arizona. It is built by a consortium of five German institutes and will be one of the first light instruments for the LBT. Later, a second copy for the second mirror of the telescope will follow. Both instruments will be mounted at the bent Gregorian foci of the two individual telescope mirrors. The final design of the instrument is presently in progress. LUCIFER will work at cryogenic temperature in the wavelength range from 0.9 μm to 2.5 μm. It is equipped with three exchangeable cameras for imaging and spectroscopy: two of them are optimized for seeing-limited conditions, the third camera for the diffraction-limited case with the LBT adaptive secondary mirror working. The spectral resolution will allow for OH suppression. Up to 33 exchangeable masks will be available for longslit and multi-object spectroscopy (MOS) over the full field of view (FOV). The detector will be a Rockwell HAWAII-2 HgCdTe-array.

The Fibre Multi-Object Spectrograph (FMOS) is a second-generation common-use instrument of the Subaru telescope. Under an international collaboration scheme of Japan, UK, and Australia, a realistic design of FMOS has been already in completion, and the fabrications of hardware components have been in progress. We present the overall design details together with the special features of FMOS subsystems, such as the prime focus corrector, the prime focus mechanical unit including fiber positioners, and the near-infrared spectrograph, etc.

The FLAMES project is the VLT Fibre Facility. It includes the fibre positioner OzPoz linking the GIRAFFE and UVES spectrographs. FLAMES is located on the Nasmyth Platform A of the Kueyen VLT telescope. The optical fibre link is arranged in four bundles: the Medusa system with 132 single fibres for multi-object spectroscopy, 15 deployable IFU modules for integral field spectroscopy of small objects, the Argus large integral field unit with two possible samplings and a bundle of 8 fibres and 55 m long linking OzPoz to UVES, a high resolution spectrograph situated on the opposite Nasmyth platform. This paper describes the final characteristics and performances of all the fibre bundles and the status at their installation at the telescope.

Fabrication of silicon grisms up to 2 inches in dimension has become a routine process at Penn State thanks to newly developed techniques in chemical etching, lithography and post-processing. The newly etched silicon grisms have typical rms surface roughness of ~ 9 nm with the best reaching 0.9 nm, significantly lower than our previous attempts (~ 20-30 nm). The wavefront quality of the etched gratings is high. Typical wavefront error is ~ 0.035 wave at 0.6328 micron, indicating diffraction-limited performance in the entire infrared wavelengths (1.2-10 microns) where silicon has excellent transmission. These processes have also significantly eliminated visible defects due to grating mask breaks during chemical etching. For the best grisms, we have less than 1 defect per cm². The measured total integrated scatter is less than 1% at 0.6328 micron, indicating similar or lower scatter in the IR when grisms are operated in transmission. These new generation grisms are being evaluated with our Penn State near IR Imager and Spectrograph (PIRIS) in cryogenic temperature. We are applying the new techniques in etching an 80x40 mm² grating on 30 mm thick substrate to make an anamorphic silicon immersion grating, which can provide a diffraction-limited spectral resolution of R = 220,000 at 2.2 micron. We plan to put this immersion grating in a modified PIRIS to measure magnetic field strength using the Fe I line at 1.56 micron among hundreds of nearby solar type stars to investigate the probability of the Maunder Minimum using the Mt. Wilson 100inch with adaptive optics in 2003.

A design of prototype Infra-Red High-dispersion Spectrograph (IRHS) is described. IRHS is a cryogenic echelle spectrometer for 8.2-m Subaru Telescope, which will operate at 8 to 13 μm with resolving power of 200,000. To achieve such a high dispersion and broad bandwidth, a Germanium immersion echelle grating was adopted. As a preliminary step, we started to develop the proto-type of IRHS (ProtoIRHS) with currently available Ge immersion grating (30x30x72 mm) and one 512x412 Si:As impurity band detector array, which will provide the maximum resolving power of 50,000 at 10 μm with slit width of 0.612 arcseconds (0.48 mm) and two-pixels sampling.

We describe our plans to add cross-dispersion and an integral field unit to the Hectochelle spectrograph, a multiobject, fiber-fed echelle spectrograph for the converted MMT. Hectochelle was originally designed without cross-dispersion to be used in a single order or overlapping orders selected by interference filters. The addition of cross-dispersion allows us to trae off multiplex advantage for spectral coverage. Our cross-disperser uses an unusual segmented, zero-deviation prism that is very compact, allowing it to fit into the existing instrument without modification. The planned integral field unit can be used with either Hectochelle or the moderate-dispersion Hectospec bench spectrograph. Both spectrographs were originally designed to be fiber-fed with a robotic fiber positioner as a front end, so adding an integral field capability is a natural enhancement. The integral field unit will use smaller diameter fibers than the robotic fiber positioner (subtending 0".6 vs. 1".5), so that both spectrographs will achieve higher spectral resolution in integral field mode. With the integral field unit Hectochelle will reach a two pixel resolution, R approximately 70,000, and Hectospec will reach R approximately 2000 with its 270 line mm^-1 grating.

The Medium Resolution Spectrograph (MRS) is a versatile, fiber-fed echelle spectrograph for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET). This instrument is designed for a wide range of scientific investigations and includes single-fiber inputs for the study of point-like sources, synthetic slits of fibers for long slit spectroscopy 9 independently positionable probes for multi-object spectroscopy, and a circular fiber integral field unit. The MRS consists of two beams. The visible beam has wavelength coverage from 450 - 900 nm in a single exposure with resolving power between 5,300 and 20,000 depending on the fibers configuration selected. This beam also has capability in the ranges 380 - 950 nm by altering the angles of the cross-disperser gratings. A second beam operating in the near-infrared has coverage of 900 - 1300 nm with resolving power between 5,300 and 10,000. Both beams can be used simultaneously and are fed by the HET Fiber Instrument Feed (FIF) which is mounted at the prime focus of the telescope and positions the fibers feeding the MRS. The MRS started commissioning summer 2002.

The high-resolution spectrograph HARPS (High-Accuracy Radial-velocity Planet Searcher) will be installed on the 3.6m telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory towards the end of 2002 and offered to the astronomical community by mid-2003. Assembly and integration of the instrument took place at the Geneva Observatory, Switzerland, during Spring 2002. At present, the verification of the system performance is in progress and is already in an advanced phase. We present in this paper the first results of our laboratory tests and describe various performance figures. We stress the outstanding mechanical and thermal stability of the instrument which are crucial for accurate radial velocity measurements. We also give a description of the simultaneous ThAr-reference technique which ensures an overall efficiency 6 times higher than with an the iodine cell absorption method. The combination of the high instrumental stability with the simultaneous ThAr-reference technique provides HARPS with characteristics highly adapted for accurate radial-velocity determination at the level of 1 ms^-1. These make our instrument suitable for the detection of planetary systems and of extra-solar planets with sub-saturnian mass.

PMAS, the Potsdam Multi-Aperture Spectrophotometer, was successfully commissioned at the Calar Alto 3.5m telescope during 2001. PMAS is a medium-resolution, lensarray/fiber based integral field spectrograph, covering the whole optical wavelength range from 350 to 900 nm with optimized high efficiency in the blue. We review the commissioning activities and present the current status of this new instrument.