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Follow this link for information about pre-observing activities: proposal preparation, mask design and submission, pre-run activities, etc. Follow this link for information about your observing run: instrument and telescope setups, scripts, software, procedures, etc. Follow this link for information about your post-observing activities: backups, comment forms, data reduction, etc.
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NIRC2 is a near-infrared imager designed for the Keck adaptive optics system. NIRC2 is positioned behind the AO bench on the Left Nasmyth Platform of Keck II. The instrument operates from 1 to 5 micron, providing three selectable cameras with pixel scales of 10, 20 and 40 milliarcsec/pixel to cover the expected range in image sizes. Two filter wheels with 18 positions each provide a variety of filters and/or grisms, while a focal plane mechanism provides slits and occulting spots for coronography. A dedicated slide carries larger grisms for spectroscopy. Six selectable pupil masks are available to reduce background noise sources; four of these rotate in concert with the telescope pupil and one is specific to spectroscopy.The detector is a 1024x1024 Aladdin-3 InSb array with four-quadrant readout into 32 channels.

Principal Investigator: Keith Matthews (CIT) No Publication Reference


NIRC2 optical layout


NIRC2 in the AO enclosure.
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