PANIC: the new panoramic NIR camera for Calar Alto

TL;DR

PANIC is a newly developed wide-field near-infrared camera for Calar Alto observatory, featuring a mosaic of four detectors, covering 0.8-2.5 microns, with versatile configurations for different telescopes.

Contribution

This paper introduces PANIC, a novel panoramic NIR camera with a unique mosaic detector setup and adaptable design for multiple telescope configurations at Calar Alto.

Findings

Covers spectral range 0.8-2.5 microns.

Field-of-view of 30x30 arcmin.

Compatible with 2.2m and 3.5m telescopes.

Abstract

PANIC is a wide-field NIR camera, which is currently under development for the Calar Alto observatory (CAHA) in Spain. It uses a mosaic of four Hawaii-2RG detectors and covers the spectral range from 0.8-2.5 micron(z to K-band). The field-of-view is 30x30 arcmin. This instrument can be used at the 2.2m telescope (0.45arcsec/pixel, 0.5x0.5 degree FOV) and at the 3.5m telescope (0.23arcsec/pixel, 0.25x0.25 degree FOV). The operating temperature is about 77K, achieved by liquid Nitrogen cooling. The cryogenic optics has three flat folding mirrors with diameters up to 282 mm and nine lenses with diameters between 130 mm and 255 mm. A compact filter unit can carry up to 19 filters distributed over four filter wheels. Narrow band (1%) filters can be used. The instrument has a diameter of 1.1 m and it is about 1 m long. The weight limit of 400 kg at the 2.2m telescope requires a light-weight cryostat design. The aluminium vacuum vessel and radiation shield have wall thicknesses of only 6 mm and 3 mm respectively.