U.Hawaii Astronomers Release First Image from Gigantic New InfraredCamera (Forwarded)

Institute for Astronomy
University of Hawaii
Honolulu, Hawaii

Contact:
Dr. Don Hall 1-808-932-2360
Karen Rehbock 1-808-956-6829

For Immediate Release, November 3, 2003

University of Hawaii Astronomers Release First Image from Gigantic New Infrared
Camera

Hilo, Hawaii -- Astronomers from the University of Hawaii (UH), Institute for
Astronomy (IfA) today released the first image from a gigantic new 16 Megapixel
infrared camera recently mounted on the UH 2.2-meter (88-inch) Telescope on
Mauna Kea. The new camera provides a sixteen-fold increase in sky coverage
together with much higher sensitivity than the 1-Megapixel cameras in widespread
use on telescopes for the last decade. Until larger telescopes have similar
cameras, it makes the 30-year-old UH 2.2-meter telescope the most powerful in
the world for infrared imaging.

The development of this new technology has been driven by the requirements of
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the next step beyond the Hubble Space
Telescope and planned for launch within ten years. This 6 meter class space
telescope with six times the collecting area of Hubble will be launched into an
orbit far beyond the moon where it will cool to temperatures of -400 degrees
Farenheit, allowing extremely sensitive infrared observations. NASA has selected
the UH/RSC detector technology for the camera on JWST and is expected to adopt
it for several other instruments.

Funded by a nearly $7 million award from NASA Ames Research Center, a team at
the IfA Hilo facility headed up by Dr. Don Hall, former IfA director, has
partnered with the Rockwell Scientific Company in Camarillo, CA, in a four year
program to develop 4 Megapixel chips utilizing new infrared detector materials
and state of the art silicon chips which, at a size of nearly 2" x 2", are some
of the largest ever produced. In partnership with GL Scientific, a Honolulu
small business, the team has innovated a new approach to mounting the individual
4 Megapixel chips so that four of them can be "tiled" into a 16 Megapixel
camera. This approach allows for even larger "mosaic" cameras in the future.

Hall emphasized that the project was run from Hilo. "The IfA team provided
technical direction of both the development effort at Rockwell Scientific and
the silicon chip fabrication at the UMC foundry in Taiwan," he said. "In
addition, we have established in Hilo a facility to test these new detectors
that is widely regarded as the best available." Hall also commented: "complex
instruments like this camera usually require extensive de-bugging once they are
mounted at the telescope. It is a tribute to the technical excellence of the IfA
staff and the superb equipment at the IfA facility that this camera produced
science data on its first night."

The galaxy imaged, NGC 891, is in the constellation Andromeda at a distance of
about 10 million light years. It is of particular scientific interest because it
is very similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy but is seen almost exactly edge-on.
Dr. Richard Wainscoat and Peter Capak, who are analyzing the image, emphasized
the importance of being able to image the entire galaxy in a single exposure
with the new camera. "With smaller cameras, galaxies such as NGC 891 had to be
imaged in small postage stamp sized pieces that had to be painstakingly pieced
together -- the new camera produces a better image in a tiny fraction of the
time," Wainscoat said. "By allowing us to image very large areas of the sky,
this camera will allow us to detect some of the most distant galaxies in the
Universe."

Along with the JWST, large ground based telescopes are already racing to take
advantage of this new technology. On Mauna Kea, both the Canada-France-Hawaii
Telescope and the Gemini Telescopes are forging ahead with 16 Megapixel infrared
cameras and Rockwell Scientific has orders for several other cameras for
telescopes in Chile.

IfA Director Dr. Rolf Kudritzki said, "This project is an excellent example of
IfA's nurturing of extremely high-tech projects in its Hilo facility and there
is an institutional commitment to continued support of such activities. It is
particularly gratifying that a number of the key personnel on this project grew
up in Hilo and were recruited back from the Mainland and that several others
were recruited directly as graduates of UH Hilo. The project also provided
important training for undergraduate assistants from UH Hilo, many of whom have
gone on to positions in related fields."

The Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii conducts research into
galaxies, cosmology, stars, planets, and the Sun. Its faculty and staff are also
involved in astronomy education, deep space missions, and in the development and
management of the observatories on Haleakala and Mauna Kea. Refer to
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/ for more information about the Institute.

IMAGE CAPTION:
[Small image (75KB):
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~hall/NGC-...ase/NGC891.jpg

Large image (2MB):
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~hall/NGC-...891-large.jpg]
This color image was made from two separate infrared images at wavelengths of
1.2 and 1.6 microns. The total exposure time was approximately 30 minutes.
Regions with strong dust absorption appear red.