Big aperture camera raytheon6/7/2023 3 we outline the early history of the project and rationale of the basic design choices in Sect. 2 we provide a short outline of the full system, to place in context the more detailed later sections. The remainder of the paper is divided into sections as follows: in Sect. The intention is to provide an intermediate level of detail across the whole system, plus references to more detailed papers for each subsystem. This paper provides an overview of the development, technical details and on-sky performance of the VISTA telescope and VIRCAM. Since 2009, the VISTA telescope and its near-infrared camera (VIRCAM) have been in science operations at ESO’s Paranal Observatory: the product of 4 m aperture and 0.6 deg 2 on-pixel field of view makes VISTA the world’s fastest near-infrared survey system, and it seems likely to retain this advantage until the launch of a dedicated space mission such as Euclid or WFIRST in around 2020. In late 1998, a new science funding opportunity was provided by the UK Joint Infrastructure Fund a consortium of 18 UK universities (see Acknowledgements) put together a successful proposal to build a new 4-m class wide-field survey telescope, sited in the southern hemisphere and mainly dedicated to multicolour imaging surveys this was named the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). On the telescope top-end, the M2 hexapod is behind the top ring the M2 Cell (black) below it, and the M2 Baffle is the metallic annulus. The VIRCAM vacuum window is visible in the centre of the tube. VISTA telescope at sunset, with the main Paranal summit and VLTs in the background. As well as forming a fundamental legacy resource (notably as an atlas for identifications of sources discovered at many other wavelengths, from radio and sub-mm to X-rays and gamma rays), these surveys have led to a very wide range of new discoveries covering most areas and scales of observational astronomy, ranging from asteroids, brown dwarfs, Galactic structure, new Milky Way satellite galaxies, through external galaxies and clusters, out to large-scale structure, weak lensing and the highest redshift quasars. 2012), and the UK Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS Lawrence et al. 2006), the CFHT Legacy Survey (CFHTLS Cuillandre et al. 2009), the 2 Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS Skrutskie et al. After the advent of large-format CCDs and near-IR detectors during the 1990s, these were followed by a number of major multi-colour digital sky surveys, notably the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS Gunn et al. Wide-field imaging surveys have long formed a cornerstone of observational astronomy, from the photographic Schmidt telescope surveys from Palomar, the UK Schmidt Telescope and ESO in the 1950–1980 era. Key words: telescopes / instrumentation: photometers / instrumentation: miscellaneous / instrumentation: detectors We conclude with a summary of the delivered performance, and a short overview of the six ESO public surveys in progress on VISTA. The system includes several innovative design features such as the f/1 primary mirror, thedichroic cold-baffle camera design and the sophisticated wavefront sensing system delivering closed-loop 5-axis alignment of the secondary mirror. We provide a short history of the project, and an overview of the technical details of the full system including the optical design, mirrors, telescope structure, IR camera, active optics, enclosure and software. The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) is the 4-m wide-field survey telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, equipped with the world’s largest near-infrared imaging camera (VISTA IR Camera, VIRCAM), with 1.65 degree diameter field of view, and 67 Mpixels giving 0.6 deg 2 active pixel area, operating at wavelengths 0.8−2.3 μm. Solaire Systems, 55/10 Bath Street, Edinburgh SKA Organisation, Jodrell Bank Observatory, National Solar Observatory, NSO/DKIST, 950 N. Senior Optical Consultant, 9 Abercorn Road,Ĭentre for Astronomical Instrumentation, University of UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Royal Observatory, School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University ofĮ1 Space, Harwell Oxford, Didcot, OxfordshireĪstrophysics, University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford Will Sutherland 1, Jim Emerson 1, Gavin Dalton 2 ,3, Eli Atad-Ettedgui 4 ,5, Steven Beard 4, Richard Bennett 4, Naidu Bezawada 4, Andrew Born 4, Martin Caldwell 2, Paul Clark 6, Simon Craig 7, David Henry 4, Paul Jeffers 7, Bryan Little 4, Alistair McPherson 8, John Murray 4, Malcolm Stewart 9, Brian Stobie 4, David Terrett 2, Kim Ward 2, Martin Whalley 2 and Guy Woodhouse 2 Astronomical objects: linking to databases.Including author names using non-Roman alphabets.Suggested resources for more tips on language editing in the sciences Punctuation and style concerns regarding equations, figures, tables, and footnotes
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