Big Throughput Camera: the first year

David M. Wittman; J. Anthony Tyson; Gary M. Bernstein; Robert W. Lee; Ian P. Dell'Antonio; P. Fischer; D. R. Smith; Morley M. Blouke

doi:10.1117/12.316787

9 July 1998 Big Throughput Camera: the first year

David M. Wittman, J. Anthony Tyson, Gary M. Bernstein, Robert W. Lee, Ian P. Dell'Antonio, P. Fischer, D. R. Smith, Morley M. Blouke

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 3355, Optical Astronomical Instrumentation; (1998) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.316787
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 1998, Kona, HI, United States

Abstract

The Big Throughput Camera (BTC) recently celebrated its first anniversary as a user instrument on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory (CTIO), where it collects more photons per second than any other nighttime astronomical camera in the world. We offer a look at the successes and lessons learned during the first year of operation. After an overview of the hardware, we describe the software from the user's point of view, and then offer examples of the observing targets and strategies used. BTC has become very popular among CTIO observers -- more than one- third of dark time is now assigned to BTC -- but the large field of view leads to some new data reduction challenges which we discuss in the final section.

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David M. Wittman, J. Anthony Tyson, Gary M. Bernstein, Robert W. Lee, Ian P. Dell'Antonio, P. Fischer, D. R. Smith, and Morley M. Blouke "Big Throughput Camera: the first year", Proc. SPIE 3355, Optical Astronomical Instrumentation, (9 July 1998); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.316787

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