Latest News!

Introduction

Current observers: check the "Latest News" above to see what has been happening with NIRC recently. Also, from Hawaii check our Instrument Activities Schedule to see whether NIRC is ready for the night. (See whether the line described as "K1 INSTRUMENT READY" has been initialed in the fifth column of the schedule.)

For general information about the telescope, see the Keck home page.

For help with instrument problems during the night, contact your on-call instrument specialist; contact instructions are given here.

Observers are highly encouraged to fill out the Post Observing Comment Form after their run, in order to provide feedback to The Observatory on all aspects of their interaction with us.

For detailed information on running NIRC and to get a copy of the NIRC User's Manual, please contact Bob Goodrich (email: rgoodrich@keck.hawaii.edu, or phone: (808) 881-3869).

Quick Reference Links

• NIRC reference: Matthews & Soifer (1994; in Infrared Astronomy with Arrays, ed. I. McLean, Kluwer, p. 239-246)
• Web page index
• New Manual (there is also a PostScript version available)
• Command Lists
• Command Summary (all commands)
• Filters/Sensitivities/Backgrounds
• Centering Procedures
• Dithering Routines
• Startup Checklist
• Timing Patterns: Minimum Integration Times
• Filter Wheel List-Inner Wheel
• Filter Wheel List-Outer Wheel
• Photometric standards
• Atmospheric Transmission Plot, 1-5.5 µm
• Atmospheric Extinction (broadband; courtesy of JACH/UKIRT)
• Atmospheric Absorption (courtesy of JACH/UKIRT)
• NIRC logsheet Postscript logsheet for NIRC.
• NIRC logsheet pdf

Chopping

• Chopping Basics
• 3-5 Micron Observing

User Interface

• Running NIRC
• Writing Scripts for NIRC
• TROUBLESHOOTING

Keck Computing

• FTPing from Keck
• Summit and HQ Computers
• Backing up Data

Image Display (Figdisp)

• Figdisp Keyboard Shortcuts

NIRC Notes

• NIRC Specifications
• Detector linearity
• Distortion

NIRC Engineering Notes