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Published November 2007 | Published
Journal Article Open

The QUEST large area CCD camera

Abstract

We have designed, constructed, and put into operation a very large area CCD camera that covers the field of view of the 1.2 m Samuel Oschin Schmidt Telescope at the Palomar Observatory. The camera consists of 112 CCDs arranged in a mosaic of four rows with 28 CCDs each. The CCDs are 600 x 2400 pixel Sarnoff thinned, back-illuminated devices with 13 µm x 13 µm pixels. The camera covers an area of 4.6° x 3.6° on the sky with an active area of 9.6 deg_2. This camera has been installed at the prime focus of the telescope and commissioned, and scientific-quality observations on the Palomar-QUEST Variability Sky Survey were started in 2003 September. The design considerations, construction features, and performance parameters of this camera are described in this paper.

Additional Information

© 2007 Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Received 2007 March 15; accepted 2008 April 07; published 2008 May 28. We thank the technical staff and the operating crew of the Palomar Observatory for their help in the installation and commissioning of the camera and their assistance in operating and maintaining the instrument over the course of the Palomar QUEST Survey. This work has been supported by Department of Energy grant DEFG-02-92ER40704, a National Science Foundation instrumentation grant, and NSF operating grant AST 04-07297.

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August 22, 2023
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