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 every 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 STFC. ULTRACAM saw 'first light' in 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 in May 2005. To date, ULTRACAM has been awarded a total of 147 nights of time on these telescopes to study white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, pulsars, black-hole/neutron-star X-ray binaries, gamma-ray bursts, cataclysmic variables, eclipsing binary stars, extrasolar planets, flare stars, ultra-compact binaries, active galactic nuclei, asteroseismology and occultations by Solar System objects (Titan, Pluto, the moons of Uranus and Kuiper Belt Objects). 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 status as the world's premier instrument for high-speed optical astrophysics. As well as maximising the return on STFC's original investment, this money will also allow us to continue to offer ULTRACAM to others in the astronomical community who wish to use it.
Organisations
Publications
Misra R
(2019)
Puzzling blue dips in the black hole candidate Swift J1357.2 - 0933, from ULTRACAM, SALT, ATCA, Swift, and NuSTAR
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Meza E
(2019)
Lower atmosphere and pressure evolution on Pluto from ground-based stellar occultations, 1988-2016
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
Wild J
(2020)
Spectroscopic and photometric periods of six ultracompact accreting binaries
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
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
Burdge K
(2020)
A Systematic Search of Zwicky Transient Facility Data for Ultracompact Binary LISA-detectable Gravitational-wave Sources
in The Astrophysical Journal
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
Nieder L
(2020)
Discovery of a Gamma-Ray Black Widow Pulsar by GPU-accelerated Einstein@Home
in The Astrophysical Journal Letters
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
Schaffenroth V
(2021)
A quantitative in-depth analysis of the prototype sdB+BD system SDSS J08205+0008 revisited in the Gaia era
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Description | We have used this grant to operate ULTRACAM on the 3.5m New Technology Telescope and the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope. ULTRACAM is a high-speed astronomical camera which has helped increase our understanding of the dead remnants of stars: white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes. |
Exploitation Route | Our findings provide the observational underpinning of theories of the structure and evolution of binary stars containing white dwarf, neutron stars and black holes. |
Sectors | Education |
URL | http://www.vikdhillon.staff.shef.ac.uk/ultracam/ |
Description | Advanced Grant |
Amount | € 3,500,000 (EUR) |
Organisation | European Research Council (ERC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | Belgium |
Start | 01/2014 |
End | 12/2018 |