| Pre-Observing | Observing | Post-Observing |
|---|---|---|
| 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. |
| Troubleshooting | Technical Pages | Index |
| Trouble Shooting pages and links. | Portal to the technical pages: for the initiated only! | A listing of the instrument pages. |
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. |