The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) a New Instrument for the Dark Energy Survey Conference Paper uri icon

abstract

  • In this paper we describe the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which will be the primary instrument used in the Dark Energy Survey. DECam will be a 3 sq. deg. mosaic camera mounted at the prime focus of the Blanco 4m telescope at the Cerro-Tololo International Observatory (CTIO). It consists of a large mosaic CCD focal plane, a five element optical corrector, five filters (g,r,i,z,Y), a modern data acquisition and control system and the associated infrastructure for operation in the prime focus cage. The focal plane includes of 62 2K 4K CCD modules (0.27''/pixel) arranged in a hexagon inscribed within the roughly 2.2 degree diameter field of view and 12 smaller 2K 2K CCDs for guiding, focus and alignment. The CCDs will be 250 micron thick fully-depleted CCDs that have been developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Production of the CCDs and fabrication of the optics, mechanical structure, mechanisms, and control system for DECam are underway; delivery of the instrument to CTIO is scheduled for 2010. 2008 IEEE.

name of conference

  • 2008 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record

published proceedings

  • 2008 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record

author list (cited authors)

  • Honscheid, K., & DePoy, D. L.

citation count

  • 5

complete list of authors

  • Honscheid, Klaus||DePoy, Darren L

publication date

  • October 2008