User's Guide to ShARCS


Table of Contents


Introduction
Summary Table
Detector Characteristics
Filters, Grisms, Apertures, Polarimeter
Software Overview
Data Taker GUI
Filter & Aperture Wheel GUI
Image Display GUI
Scripts
Sound server
Temperature Monitor
Observing Procedures and Tips
FITS Header Keywords
Trouble-Shooting
Logsheet

Data Archive
Mt. Hamilton Homepage

Summary Table

Image scale: 0.033 arcsec/pixel
Unvignetted Field of View:20x20 arcsec
Illuminated Circular Field:27.7 arcsec (840 pixel) diameter
Detector:Teledyne H2RG

Filter/Aperture Wheels
Filter 1 Filter 2 Aperture
CaF-KgrismHGrismPinhole-100um
PupilViewerBlank25Slit-100um-V
BrG-2.16OpenHalf-field
H2-2.122Ch4-1.2Open
KsCH4-2.4Slit-100um-H
HKFinger
JWollaston
OpenFeII

Science (External) Filter Wheel
PositionFilter
1Open
2ND2
3ND4
42.2/0.04
5Kcont
6Hcont

Read Noise:21 e- with CDS
6 e- with 16 Reads
5 e- with 32 Reads
Gain:2.35 e-/DN
Linearity~30,000 DN (~70,500 e-)
Minimum full frame readout time:1.46 seconds
Windowing mode readout time:0.11 seconds with 100x100 square pixel region
Measured Zero Points:
ZP = 2.5 log10(N photons/sec)
J = 22.3
H = 24.3
K = 23.5
Ks =
Sky Backgrounds:
J = 15.84 mag per square arcsec
H = 13.85 mag per square arcsec
K = 13.87 mag per square arcsec
Ks = 14.60 mag per square arcsec
Predicted Limiting Magnitudes:
300s Fowler sampling with 32 reads, S/N=5
FilterShARCS 8ShARCS 16
K Strehl0.60.8
J21.3022.28
H20.4821.03
K18.7119.02
Ks18.9219.24

Off-axis Guide Star limits

Both LGS and NGS AO observing require natural guide stars. Limits below are approximate, as the field of view for the off-axis guide stars are not circular. Also, the magnitude limits are color dependent. For more detailed information, see the ShaneAO user manual.

ModeMax distance to Guide StarR Magnitude Limit
NGS10"12 (with TT Dichroic)
13.5 (with Mirror)
LGS60"18


sa@ucolick.org
Last modified: Wed Jun 2 13:59:38 PDT 2021