High-angular-resolution NIR astronomy with large arrays (SHARP I and SHARP II)

Reiner Hofmann; Bernhard Rainer Brandl; Andreas Eckart; Frank Eisenhauer; Lowell E. Tacconi-Garman

doi:10.1117/12.211256

6 June 1995 High-angular-resolution NIR astronomy with large arrays (SHARP I and SHARP II)

Reiner Hofmann, Bernhard Rainer Brandl, Andreas Eckart, Frank Eisenhauer, Lowell E. Tacconi-Garman

Proceedings Volume 2475, Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy; (1995) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.211256
Event: SPIE's 1995 Symposium on OE/Aerospace Sensing and Dual Use Photonics, 1995, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

SHARP I and SHARP II are near infrared cameras for high-angular-resolution imaging. Both cameras are built around a 256 X 256 pixel NICMOS 3 HgCdTe array from Rockwell which is sensitive in the 1 - 2.5 micrometers range. With a 0.05"/pixel scale, they can produce diffraction limited K-band images at 4-m-class telescopes. For a 256 X 256 array, this pixel scale results in a field of view of 12.8" X 12.8" which is well suited for the observation of galactic and extragalactic near-infrared sources. Photometric and low resolution spectroscopic capabilities are added by photometric band filters (J, H, K), narrow band filters ((lambda) /(Delta) (lambda) approximately equals 100) for selected spectral lines, and a CVF ((lambda) /(Delta) (lambda) approximately equals 70). A cold shutter permits short exposure times down to about 10 ms. The data acquisition electronics permanently accepts the maximum frame rate of 8 Hz which is defined by the detector time constants (data rate 1 Mbyte/s). SHARP I has been especially designed for speckle observations at ESO's 3.5 m New Technology Telescope and is in operation since 1991. SHARP II is used at ESO's 3.6 m telescope together with the adaptive optics system COME-ON + since 1993. A new version of SHARP II is presently under test, which incorporates exchangeable camera optics for observations with scales of 0.035, 0.05, and 0.1"/pixel. The first scale extends diffraction limited observations down to the J-band, while the last one provides a larger field of view. To demonstrate the power of the cameras, images of the galactic center obtained with SHARP I, and images of the R136 region in 30 Doradus observed with SHARP II are presented.

Citation Download Citation

Reiner Hofmann, Bernhard Rainer Brandl, Andreas Eckart, Frank Eisenhauer, and Lowell E. Tacconi-Garman "High-angular-resolution NIR astronomy with large arrays (SHARP I and SHARP II)", Proc. SPIE 2475, Infrared Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy, (6 June 1995); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.211256

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