The Prime Focus Camera is an instrument that will be used at the Prime focus of the Shane 3 meter telescope located at Lick Observatory on top of Mount Hamilton, California. It is an imaging camera which will be mounted in the f/5.5 beam above the Epps prime focus field and atmospheric dispersion correctors. The first light detector will be a 2048 x 2048 unthinned SITE CCD which gives a 10 x 10 arc-minute unvignetted field of view. The camera has a 6-position remotely controlled filter wheel that accepts 4 x 4 inch filters (required for the full field of view). There is also a fully remotely controlled guide TV with a 1.7x1.3 arcminute FOV that can scan 10 arc-minutes in the E-W direction. It is anticipated that the instrument will be available for general use for the second semester of 1997.
View some images of PFCam during fabrication and testing.
First light on March 26, 1997 was a BIG SUCCESS!! Images of M51 and M92 are just a couple of those obtained over the two night engineering run.
Project Principal Investigator: Michael Bolte (bolte@ucolick.org)
Project Engineer: Matt Radovan
CCD Wizard: Kirk Gilmore
Assembly and Testing: Jim Burrous
Fabrication: The fabulous Lick Instrument Lab Team
This page is maintained by Ken Dietsch
ken@ucolick.org
