Upgrades to the NIRC2 Instrument at WMKO

Carlos Alvarez; Timothee Greffe; David Hale; Riley Rosener; Vanshika Kansal; Kyle Lanclos; William Deich; Paul Richards; Matthew Brown; Maxwell Service; Roger Smith; Dimitri Mawet; Marc Kassis; Randall Campbell

doi:10.1117/12.3020553

19 July 2024 Upgrades to the NIRC2 Instrument at WMKO

Carlos Alvarez, Timothee Greffe, David Hale, Riley Rosener, Vanshika Kansal, Kyle Lanclos, William Deich, Paul Richards, Matthew Brown, Maxwell Service, Roger Smith, Dimitri Mawet, Marc Kassis, Randall Campbell

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 13096, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy X; 1309638 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3020553
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2024, Yokohama, Japan

Conference Poster

Abstract

We report on two critical upgrades to NIRC2, the workhorse diffraction-limited infrared instrument in use with the Keck II telescope Adaptive Optics (AO) system at the W. M. Keck Observatory. NIRC2 has been in operation for over two decades and it is one of the most productive instruments at WMKO. The NIRC2 detector is a 1Kx1K InSb Aladdin-3. We have upgraded the detector electronics from the original system based on transputers to a state-of-the-art Archon controller. One of the most demanded NIRC2 observing modes is high-contrast imaging using Vector Vortex Coronagraphic (VVC) masks, which have been available to the NIRC2 observing community since 2015. To maximize the attenuation of the AO-generated Point Spread Function (PSF) core, the star needs to be precisely centered on the vortex mask over the course of an observation. This is achieved with a servo loop control software based on the Quadrant Analysis of Coronagraphic Images for Tip-tilt Sensing (QACITS) technique. We have migrated the original IDL-based QACITS software to Python, including several updates and a new graphical interface. Both Archon and QACITS upgrades are aimed at boosting the NIRC2 observing efficiency.

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Carlos Alvarez, Timothee Greffe, David Hale, Riley Rosener, Vanshika Kansal, Kyle Lanclos, William Deich, Paul Richards, Matthew Brown, Maxwell Service, Roger Smith, Dimitri Mawet, Marc Kassis, and Randall Campbell "Upgrades to the NIRC2 Instrument at WMKO", Proc. SPIE 13096, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy X, 1309638 (19 July 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3020553

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