Testing the Dark Energy Camera on a telescope simulator

Diehl, H. T.; Abbott, T. M. C.; Bailey, Jan; Bonati, Marco; Bremer, Gale; Briones, Jorge; Buckley-Geer, E.; Cease, H.; Chi, Edward C.; DePoy, D. L.; Estrada, J.; Finley, D. A.; Flaugher, B.; Gerdes, D. W.; Grudzinski, J.; Hanson, Bill; Hao, Jiangang; Honscheid, K.; Jackson, Cheryl; Karliner, I.; Krempetz, K.; Kuêhn, K.; Kuhlmann, S. E.; Morgan, Jim; Nord, B.; Shaw, Terri; Tarlè, G.; Schultz, Kenneth R.; Sypniewski, Adam; Stefanik, A.; Thaler, J. J.; Walker, A. R.; Wester, W. C.; Weaverdyck, Curtis; Woods, Robert J.; Zhao, Allen

doi:10.1117/12.857746

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…DECam was first assembled and tested at Fermilab on a fullscale reproduction of the telescope toprings and fins that we called the "Telescope Simulator" (Diehl et al 2010;Soares-Santos et al 2012). The Telescope Simulator had pitch and roll capability, allowing us to position the camera in any orientation that it might meet on the Blanco.…”

Section: Preassembly and Testing At Fermilab And Uclmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dark Energy Camera

Flaugher¹,

Diehl²,

Honscheid³

et al. 2015

921

588

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The Dark Energy Camera is a new imager with a 2°. 2 diameter field of view mounted at the prime focus of the Victor M. Blanco 4m telescope on Cerro Tololo near La Serena, Chile. The camera was designed and constructed by the Dark Energy Survey Collaborationand meets or exceeds the stringent requirements designed for the widefield and supernova surveys for which the collaboration uses it. The camera consists of a five-element optical corrector, seven filters, a shutter with a 60 cm aperture, and a charge-coupled device (CCD) focal plane of 250 μm thick fully depleted CCDs cooled inside a vacuum Dewar. The 570 megapixel focal plane comprises 62 2k × 4k CCDs for imaging and 12 2k × 2k CCDs for guiding and focus. The CCDs have 15 μm × 15 μm pixels with a plate scale of 0 263 pixel −1. A hexapod system provides state-of-the-art focus and alignment capability. The camera is read out in 20 s with 6-9 electronreadout noise. This paper provides a technical description of the cameraʼs engineering, construction, installation, and current status.

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Section: Preassembly and Testing At Fermilab And Uclmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dark Energy Camera

Flaugher¹,

Diehl²,

Honscheid³

et al. 2015

921

588

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“…The Dark Energy Camera has been designed for efficient installation and removal from the CTIO Blanco telescope Prime Focus Cage. Figure 11 shows the DECam camera installation fixture positioned in front of the Prime Focus Cage, mounted on the Blanco Telescope Simulator at Fermilab [20] . To change from DECam to DESpec, one would tilt the telescope to the northwest platform and use the DECam camera installation fixture to remove DECam.…”

Section: Interchangeability With Decammentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dark Energy Spectrometer: a potential multi-fiber instrument for the Blanco 4-meter Telescope

et al. 2012

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We describe the preliminary design of the Dark Energy Spectrometer (DESpec), a fiber-fed spectroscopic instrument concept for the Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). DESpec would take advantage of the infrastructure recently deployed for the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). DESpec would be mounted in the new DECam prime focus cage, would be interchangeable with DECam, would share the DECam optical corrector, and would feature a focal plane with ~4000 robotically positioned optical fibers feeding multiple high-throughput spectrometers. The instrument would have a field of view of 3.8 square degrees, a wavelength range of approximately 500<λ<1000 nm, and a spectral resolution of R~3000. DESpec would provide a powerful spectroscopic follow-up system for sources in the Southern hemisphere discovered by the Dark Energy Survey and LSST.

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“…The focal plane itself has 42 cm radius and is populated with 62 2048x4096 pixel 250 µm thick, fully-depleted, red-sensitive CCDs [8], for imaging. It was first assembled and tested at Fermilab on a full-scale reproduction of the telescope top-rings that we called the "Telescope Simulator" [9][10]. It was delivered to CTIO in a series of shipments starting in early 2010.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Dark Energy Survey and operations: Year 1

et al. 2014

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The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is a next generation optical survey aimed at understanding the accelerating expansion of the universe using four complementary methods: weak gravitational lensing, galaxy cluster counts, baryon acoustic oscillations, and Type Ia supernovae. To perform the 5000 sq-degree wide field and 30 sq-degree supernova surveys, the DES Collaboration built the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), a 3 square-degree, 570-Megapixel CCD camera that was installed at the prime focus of the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). DES started its first observing season on August 31, 2013 and observed for 105 nights through mid-February 2014. This paper describes DES "Year 1" (Y1), the strategy and goals for the first year's data, provides an outline of the operations procedures, lists the efficiency of survey operations and the causes of lost observing time, provides details about the quality of the first year's data, and hints at the "Year 2" plan and outlook.

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Testing the Dark Energy Camera on a telescope simulator

Cited by 9 publications

References 14 publications

The Dark Energy Camera

The Dark Energy Camera

The Dark Energy Spectrometer: a potential multi-fiber instrument for the Blanco 4-meter Telescope

The Dark Energy Survey and operations: Year 1

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