Optics for ULTRACAM on the NTT
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Sheffield
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
ULTRACAM is a digital camera capable of taking up to 300 red, green and blue images every second. The instrument was built in 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 STFC. ULTRACAM saw "first light" in 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 in 2005. The latter is widely regarded as the world's most powerful telescope and ULTRACAM became both the first instrument to use its "Visitor Focus" and the first UK-built instrument to be mounted on the VLT. In 2010, we also commissioned ULTRACAM on the 3.5-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) in Chile.
To date, ULTRACAM has been awarded nearly 500 nights of telescope time to study white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, pulsars, black-hole/neutron-star X-ray binaries, gamma-ray bursts, extra-solar planets, cataclysmic variables, eclipsing binary stars, flare stars, ultra-compact binaries, asteroseismology and occultations by Solar System objects (e.g. Titan and Kuiper Belt Objects). The large quantity of observing time awarded to ULTRACAM on some of the world's finest telescopes is testament to the competitiveness of the science performed with the instrument. Over 100 refereed publications in major astronomical journals have resulted from this work, including 3 papers in Nature and 2 papers in Science.
This grant proposal requests funding to significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio of ULTRACAM observations by providing it with new collimating optics for the NTT and a new set of high-throughput filters, to the benefit of all users in the European Southern Observatory (ESO) community.
To date, ULTRACAM has been awarded nearly 500 nights of telescope time to study white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, pulsars, black-hole/neutron-star X-ray binaries, gamma-ray bursts, extra-solar planets, cataclysmic variables, eclipsing binary stars, flare stars, ultra-compact binaries, asteroseismology and occultations by Solar System objects (e.g. Titan and Kuiper Belt Objects). The large quantity of observing time awarded to ULTRACAM on some of the world's finest telescopes is testament to the competitiveness of the science performed with the instrument. Over 100 refereed publications in major astronomical journals have resulted from this work, including 3 papers in Nature and 2 papers in Science.
This grant proposal requests funding to significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio of ULTRACAM observations by providing it with new collimating optics for the NTT and a new set of high-throughput filters, to the benefit of all users in the European Southern Observatory (ESO) community.
Planned Impact
ULTRACAM is a camera that operates at the boundaries of speed defined by detector noise performance and object brightness. Its development required and enabled the UK's Astronomy Technology Centre (UKATC) to develop and build a new high-speed data acquisition system from scratch. This "UCAM" system has gone on to be used in other UK astronomical instruments and to be sold as part of systems supplied by the UKATC outside the UK. Continued operation and exploitation of ULTRACAM for leading-edge astronomical research provides a platform to test modifications, updates and upgrades of the UCAM system, allowing the UKATC to maintain a competitive edge to this acquisition system.
People |
ORCID iD |
Vikram Singh Dhillon (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Aranzana E
(2018)
Fourier time lags in the dwarf nova SS Cygni
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Baran A
(2018)
Pulsations and eclipse-time analysis of HW Vir
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Bonnet-Bidaud J
(2020)
Fast quasi-periodic oscillations in the eclipsing polar VV Puppis from VLT and XMM-Newton observations
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Burdge K
(2020)
A Systematic Search of Zwicky Transient Facility Data for Ultracompact Binary LISA-detectable Gravitational-wave Sources
in The Astrophysical Journal
Casewell S
(2020)
WD1032 + 011, an inflated brown dwarf in an old eclipsing binary with a white dwarf
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Clark C
(2021)
Einstein@Home discovery of the gamma-ray millisecond pulsar PSR J2039-5617 confirms its predicted redback nature
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Föhring D
(2019)
Atmospheric scintillation noise in ground-based exoplanet photometry
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gandhi P
(2017)
An elevation of 0.1 light-seconds for the optical jet base in an accreting Galactic black hole system
in Nature Astronomy
Green M
(2018)
High-speed photometry of Gaia14aae: an eclipsing AM CVn that challenges formation models
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Green M
(2018)
A 15.7-Minute AM CVn Binary Discovered in K2
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Description | This grant enabled us to do three things: 1. Purchase a new, custom-designed set of SDSS filters - so-called "Super SDSS" filters - which significantly improve the throughput of ULTRACAM on the NTT. Specifically, we have improved the throughput by 41/9/6/9/5% in ugriz, respectively. 2. Design and procure a new collimator for ULTRACAM, significantly improving the image quality so that we can now exploit the moments of best seeing (<0.6") on La Silla, thereby significantly improving the signal-to-noise ratio of our scientific data. 3. Design, build and commission (in collaboration with ESO) the "cube" - a new mounting for ULTRACAM on the 3.5m ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT) in Chile that allows ULTRACAM to be permanently mounted on the telescope. This will save a huge amount of staff effort in continuously mounting/dismounting the instrument before/after every science run. The permanent mounting has also made ULTRACAM much more stable in performance, and significantly reduced the risk of damage due to the instrument by not having to continually move it. Most importantly, permanently mounting the instrument on the telescope has significantly increased the amount of observing time we are able to win, and allow us to respond immediately to new scientific opportunities in the night sky. |
Exploitation Route | ULTRACAM is used for approximately 2 months per year at the NTT. It is available to the entire UK astronomical community to use, via our membership of ESO. Hence the impact of this grant will be widely felt. |
Sectors | Other |
Title | Enhanced optics for ULTRACAM on the NTT |
Description | We used this grant to procure a new collimator for ULTRACAM on the NTT, which significantly improves the image quality of ULTRACAM (the collimator is due to be commissioned in Q2 2020). We also procured new "Super SDSS" filters, which have significantly improved the throughput of ULTRACAM. Finally, we used this grant to design and build a mounting "cube" for ULTRACAM, which was commissioned in 2019 and allows ULTRACAM to be permanently mounted on the NTT. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | It is still too soon to have had any notable impact. |
Description | ESO-ULTRACAM agreement |
Organisation | European Southern Observatory (ESO) |
Country | Germany |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | This award helped to further the existing agreement between the ULTRACAM team at Sheffield/Warwick and the European Southern Observatory (ESO), who operate the 3.5m New Technology Telescope (NTT) in Chile on which ULTRACAM is mounted. Under this agreement, which has been signed for the period 2017-2022, ULTRACAM is mounted for up to 25% of the time on the NTT, and the team at Sheffield/Warwick are awarded approximately 0.6 nights of guaranteed time for every 1.0 night awarded to external (i.e. non Sheffield/Warwick) applicants. |
Collaborator Contribution | Please see above. |
Impact | A number of ULTRACAM publications have resulted from its use on the NTT since 2017 - these are detailed elsewhere. |
Start Year | 2017 |