ULTRACAM operations
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Sheffield
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
ULTRACAM is a digital camera capable of taking (and storing) up to 500 red, green and blue images per second. The instrument was built in just under 3 years by a consortium from the Universities of Sheffield, Warwick and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh, using a £300,000 grant awarded by PPARC. ULTRACAM saw 'first light' on 16 May 2002 on the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma, and first light on the 8.2-m Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile on 4 May 2005. To date, ULTRACAM has been awarded a total of 92 nights of time on these telescopes for projects as varied as white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, asteroseismology, pulsars, black-hole/neutron-star X-ray binaries, eclipsing binary stars, gamma-ray bursts, cataclysmic variables, extrasolar planets, active galactic nuclei, Kuiper Belt objects and Saturn's moon Titan. This grant proposal requests funding for the proper maintenance and operation of ULTRACAM, as well as a modest programme of minor upgrades, thereby ensuring that ULTRACAM maintains its position as the world's premier instrument for high-speed optical astrophysics. As well as maximising the return on PPARC's original investment, this money will also allow us to continue to offer ULTRACAM to others in the UK and astronomical community who wish to use it.
Organisations
Publications
Gandhi P
(2008)
Rapid optical and X-ray timing observations of GX 339-4: flux correlations at the onset of a low/hard state ?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Hynes R
(2019)
Optical and X-ray correlations during the 2015 outburst of the black hole V404 Cyg
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Kurtz D
(2008)
A search for a new class of pulsating DA white dwarf stars in the DB gap A new class of pulsating white dwarf stars
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Littlefair S
(2006)
Observations of ultracool dwarfs with ULTRACAM on the VLT: a search for weather? Observations of ultracool dwarfs
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Littlefair S
(2006)
ULTRACAM observations of SDSS J170213.26 + 322954.1 ??? an eclipsing cataclysmic variable in the period gap
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Littlefair S
(2008)
Optical variability of the ultracool dwarf TVLM 513-46546: evidence for inhomogeneous dust clouds ?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Littlefair S
(2006)
A Brown Dwarf Mass Donor in an Accreting Binary
in Science
Littlefair S
(2007)
SDSS J150722.30+523039.8: a cataclysmic variable formed directly from a detached white dwarf/brown dwarf binary?
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Littlefair S
(2008)
On the evolutionary status of short-period cataclysmic variables
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Marsh T
(2020)
Optical, X-ray, and ?-ray observations of the candidate transitional millisecond pulsar 4FGL J0427.8-6704
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society