The Dark Energy Camera
Abstract
The Dark Energy Camera is a new imager with a 2.2-degree diameter field of view mounted at the prime focus of the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope on Cerro Tololo near La Serena, Chile. The camera was designed and constructed by the Dark Energy Survey Collaboration, and meets or exceeds the stringent requirements designed for the wide-field and supernova surveys for which the collaboration uses it. The camera consists of a five element optical corrector, seven filters, a shutter with a 60 cm aperture, and a CCD focal plane of 250 micron thick fully-depleted CCDs cooled inside a vacuum Dewar. The 570 Mpixel focal plane comprises 62 2kx4k CCDs for imaging and 12 2kx2k CCDs for guiding and focus. The CCDs have 15 microns x15 microns pixels with a plate scale of 0.263 arc sec per pixel. A hexapod system provides state-of-the-art focus and alignment capability. The camera is read out in 20 seconds with 6-9 electrons readout noise. This paper provides a technical description of the camera's engineering, construction, installation, and current status.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1504.02900,
title = {The Dark Energy Camera},
author = {B. Flaugher and H. T. Diehl and K. Honscheid and T. M. C. Abbott and O. Alvarez and R. Angstadt and J. T. Annis and M. Antonik and O. Ballester and L. Beaufore and G. M. Bernstein and R. A. Bernstein and B. Bigelow and M. Bonati and D. Boprie and D. Brooks and E. J. Buckley-Geer and J. Campa and L. Cardiel-Sas and F. J. Castander and J. Castilla and H. Cease and J. M. Cela-Ruiz and S. Chappa and E. Chi and C. Cooper and L. N. da Costa and E. Dede and G. Derylo and D. L. DePoy and J. de Vicente and P. Doel and A. Drlica-Wagner and J. Eiting and A. E. Elliott and J. Emes and J. Estrada and A. Fausti Neto and D. A. Finley and R. Flores and J. Frieman and D. Gerdes and M. D. Gladders and B. Gregory and G. R. Gutierrez and J. Hao and S. E. Holland and S. Holm and D. Huffman and C. Jackson and D. J. James and M. Jonas and A. Karcher and I. Karliner and S. Kent and R. Kessler and M. Kozlovsky and R. G. Kron and D. Kubik and K. Kuehn and S. Kuhlmann and K. Kuk and O. Lahav and A. Lathrop and J. Lee and M. E. Levi and P. Lewis and T. S. Li and I. Mandrichenko and J. L. Marshall and G. Martinez and K. W. Merritt and R. Miquel and F. Munoz and E. H. Neilsen and R. C. Nichol and B. Nord and R. Ogando and J. Olsen and N. Palio and K. Patton and J. Peoples and A. A. Plazas and J. Rauch and K. Reil and J. -P. Rheault and N. A. Roe and H. Rogers and A. Roodman and E. Sanchez and V. Scarpine and R. H. Schindler and R. Schmidt and R. Schmitt and M. Schubnell and K. Schultz and P. Schurter and L. Scott and S. Serrano and T. M. Shaw and R. C. Smith and M. Soares-Santos and A. Stefanik and W. Stuermer and E. Suchyta and A. Sypniewski and G. Tarle and J. Thaler and R. Tighe and C. Tran and D. Tucker and A. R. Walker and G. Wang and M. Watson and C. Weaverdyck and W. Wester and R. Woods and B. Yanny},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.02900},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
submitted to AJ Corresponding Authors H. T. Diehl (diehl@fnal.gov)