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Title: Design and development of the 3.2 gigapixel camera for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

Abstract

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is a large aperture, wide-field facility designed to reflect deep images of half the sky every few nights. There is only a single instrument on the telescope, a 9.6 square degree visible-band camera, which is mounted close to the secondary mirror, and points down toward the tertiary. The requirements of the LSST camera present signifcant technical design challenges. To cover the entire 0.35 to 1 μm visible band, the camera incorporates an array of 189 over-depleted bulk silicon CCDs with 10 μm pixels. The CCDs are assembled into 3 x 3 "rafts", which are then mounted to a silicon carbide grid to achieve a total focal plane flatness of 15 μm p-v. The CCDs have 16 amplifiers per chip, enabling the entire 3.2 Gigapixel image to be read out in 2 seconds. Unlike other astronomical cameras, a vast majority of the focal plane electronics are housed in the cryostat, which uses a mixed refrigerant Joule-Thompson system to maintain a -100ºC sensor temperature. The shutter mechanism uses a 3 blade stack design and a hall-effect sensor to achieve high resolution and uniformity. There are 5 filters stored in a carousel around the cryostat and themore » auto changer requires a dual guide system to control its position due to severe space constraints. This paper presents an overview of the current state of the camera design and development plan.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [4];  [3];  [3];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [7];  [7];  [7]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  2. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
  3. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
  4. Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
  5. Inst. National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3), Paris (France)
  6. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
  7. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Org.:
LSST Camera Team
OSTI Identifier:
1443082
Report Number(s):
SLAC-PUB-14185
Journal ID: 0277-786X
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-76SF00515; AC52-07NA27344; FG02-91ER40681A29
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 7735; Conference: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, San Diego, CA (United States), 10 Aug 2010
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS; LSST; camera; survey; wide-field, gigapixel; CCD

Citation Formats

Kahn, S. M., Kurita, N., Gilmore, K., Nordby, M., O'Connor, P., Schindler, R., Oliver, J., Van Berg, R., Olivier, S., Riot, V., Antilogus, P., Schalk, T., Huffer, M., Bowden, G., Singal, J., and Foss, M. Design and development of the 3.2 gigapixel camera for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. United States: N. p., 2010. Web. doi:10.1117/12.857920.
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Kahn, S. M., Kurita, N., Gilmore, K., Nordby, M., O'Connor, P., Schindler, R., Oliver, J., Van Berg, R., Olivier, S., Riot, V., Antilogus, P., Schalk, T., Huffer, M., Bowden, G., Singal, J., & Foss, M. Design and development of the 3.2 gigapixel camera for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. United States. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857920
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Kahn, S. M., Kurita, N., Gilmore, K., Nordby, M., O'Connor, P., Schindler, R., Oliver, J., Van Berg, R., Olivier, S., Riot, V., Antilogus, P., Schalk, T., Huffer, M., Bowden, G., Singal, J., and Foss, M. Fri . "Design and development of the 3.2 gigapixel camera for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope". United States. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857920. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1443082.
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@article{osti_1443082,
title = {Design and development of the 3.2 gigapixel camera for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope},
author = {Kahn, S. M. and Kurita, N. and Gilmore, K. and Nordby, M. and O'Connor, P. and Schindler, R. and Oliver, J. and Van Berg, R. and Olivier, S. and Riot, V. and Antilogus, P. and Schalk, T. and Huffer, M. and Bowden, G. and Singal, J. and Foss, M.},
abstractNote = {The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is a large aperture, wide-field facility designed to reflect deep images of half the sky every few nights. There is only a single instrument on the telescope, a 9.6 square degree visible-band camera, which is mounted close to the secondary mirror, and points down toward the tertiary. The requirements of the LSST camera present signifcant technical design challenges. To cover the entire 0.35 to 1 μm visible band, the camera incorporates an array of 189 over-depleted bulk silicon CCDs with 10 μm pixels. The CCDs are assembled into 3 x 3 "rafts", which are then mounted to a silicon carbide grid to achieve a total focal plane flatness of 15 μm p-v. The CCDs have 16 amplifiers per chip, enabling the entire 3.2 Gigapixel image to be read out in 2 seconds. Unlike other astronomical cameras, a vast majority of the focal plane electronics are housed in the cryostat, which uses a mixed refrigerant Joule-Thompson system to maintain a -100ºC sensor temperature. The shutter mechanism uses a 3 blade stack design and a hall-effect sensor to achieve high resolution and uniformity. There are 5 filters stored in a carousel around the cryostat and the auto changer requires a dual guide system to control its position due to severe space constraints. This paper presents an overview of the current state of the camera design and development plan.},
doi = {10.1117/12.857920},
journal = {Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering},
number = ,
volume = 7735,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Jul 16 00:00:00 EDT 2010},
month = {Fri Jul 16 00:00:00 EDT 2010}
}
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Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857920
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Cited by: 23 works
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Works referencing / citing this record:

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  • DOI: 10.1086/680687

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Dark energy two decades after: Observables, probes, consistency tests
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