Caltech Optical Observatories Optical/IR Instrumentation TWiki

Overview

• Caltech Optical Observatories' OIR Instrumentation Group conceives, studies, designs, integrates, and commissions high-impact astronomical instrumentation for Caltech-accessible astronomical observatories including TMT, Keck, Gemini, Subaru, and Palomar. We also support space instrumentation development through partnerships with NASA and DoE.
• The OIR group currently consists of 18 professional engineers and instrument scientists and 3 postdoctoral scholars, located on the Caltech campus in Pasadena, California.
• The group is led by Dr. Richard Dekany, Associate Director, COO.

Latest News from OIR

• AMNH's P1640 IR speckle suppression integral field spectrocoronagraph sees first light with Palomar AO (July 8, 2008)
• COO awarded $45K for Antarctic site testing research (June 14, 2008)
• Four new seeing-limited instrument pre-concept studies for Keck given the go-ahead (May 12, 2008)
• COO and JPL awarded $160K to study Non-linear Detector Effects in Weak Gravitational Lensing (February 14, 2008)

Older News Items

• Palomar Adaptive Optics + Lucky Cam named one of TIME magazine's 50 Best Inventions of the Year in 2007:
  • Link to TIME article * Triplespec First Light - the Cornell-led, no moving parts, cross-dispersed echelle has successful first run on the 200" telescope (October 2, 2007)
• Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) kicks off the development of MOSAIC, its wide-field imaging camera for the 48" Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar (October 1, 2007)
• CAMERA, COO's low cost MEMs AO testbed locks loop in the Robinson Lab (August 15, 2007)
• COO/JPL Palomar Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics achieves 48% K-band Strehl in superior seeing conditions at Palomar Mountain (July 29, 2007)
• COO awarded $1.1M by National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program for development of the visible-light PALM-3000 AO system on the 5.1m Hale Telescope at Palomar Mountain (Sept 3, 2006)

Quick Links

• COO All Hands Meetings
• Keck Next Generation Adaptive Optics (NGAO) TWiki

Reference

• Caltech Instrumentation Notes (CIN's)
• Keck Next Generation Adaptive Optics Notes (KAON's)

New User Information

• WelcomeGuest: for first time visitors
• If you want to learn more about TWiki then visit the TWiki web.

Registration Information

• Registration is required to edit, append, modify, or delete OIR TWiki content. Please contact Richard Dekany at COO for details.

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