30 Years of Star Formation at UKIRT

TL;DR

This paper reviews 30 years of UKIRT's instrumental development and its significant contributions to star formation research across near-infrared, mid-infrared, and sub-millimetre wavelengths, highlighting technological progress and scientific impact.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of UKIRT's instrumental evolution and its role in advancing star formation studies over three decades.

Findings

UKIRT's instruments have enabled diverse star formation research.

Development from single detectors to large-format imagers like WFCAM.

UKIRT's contributions have significantly impacted infrared astronomy.

Abstract

It's safe to say that UKIRT's contribution to star formation at near-infrared, mid-infrared, and even sub-millimetre wavelengths has been considerable. From the early days of single-detector photometers, through the development of 2-D arrays and complex multi-mode imager-spectrometers, to the present-day large-format imager WFCAM, UKIRT has offered the international community access to some of the world's most innovating, competitive, and versatile instrumentation possible. Suffice to say, UKIRT users have made the most of these instruments! In this article I try to give a taste of the variety of star formation research that has come to pass at UKIRT (with apologies to those whose important work I fail to mention).