CHIMERA: a wide-field, multi-color, high-speed photometer at the prime focus of the Hale telescope

TL;DR

CHIMERA is a high-speed, multi-color photometer designed for the Hale telescope, enabling simultaneous imaging in multiple bands with high frame rates for studying small Solar System objects and transient phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a novel instrument combining wide-field, multi-band, high-speed imaging with EMCCD detectors at the Hale telescope's prime focus.

Findings

Achieves up to 26 fps full-frame imaging with sub-electron noise

Enables characterization of Kuiper Belt Objects via stellar occultation

Supports detection of faint near-Earth asteroids and transient sources

Abstract

The Caltech HIgh-speed Multi-color camERA (CHIMERA) is a new instrument that has been developed for use at the prime focus of the Hale 200-inch telescope. Simultaneous optical imaging in two bands is enabled by a dichroic beam splitter centered at 567 nm, with Sloan u' and g' bands available on the blue arm and Sloan r', i' and z_s' bands available on the red arm. Additional narrow-band filters will also become available as required. An Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD) detector is employed for both optical channels, each capable of simultaneously delivering sub-electron effective read noise under multiplication gain and frame rates of up to 26 fps full frame (several 1000 fps windowed), over a fully corrected 5 x 5 arcmin field of view. CHIMERA was primarily developed to enable the characterization of the size distribution of sub-km Kuiper Belt Objects via stellar occultation, a science case that motivates the frame-rate, the simultaneous multi-color imaging and the wide field of view of the instrument. In addition, it also has unique capability in the detection of faint near-Earth asteroids and will be used for the monitoring of short duration transient and periodic sources, particularly those discovered by the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF), and the upcoming Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF).