Search

A Raytheon HgCdTe (cut-off 5 μm) 436×270 Infrared Focal Plane Array (IRFPA) is mounted at two of the three focal planes of an infrared imaging spectrometer, VIRTIS, on board the ESA/ROSETTA cometary mission. VIRTIS is comprised of a mapping spectrometer (-M) under Italian responsibility (Officine Galileo) and a high-resolution spectrometer (-H) under French responsibility (Observatoire de Paris, Meudon).

The visible infrared thermal imaging spectrometer (VIRTIS) is one of the principal payloads to be launched in 2003 on ESA's Rosetta spacecraft. Its primary scientific objective s are to map the surface of the comet Wirtanen, monitor its temperature, and identify the solids and gaseous species on the nucleus and in the coma. VIRTIS will also collet data on two asteroids, one of which has been identified as Mimistrobell. The data is collected remotely using a mapping spectrometer co-boresighted with a high spectral resolution spectrometer. The mapper consists of a Shafer telescope matched to an Offner grating spectrometer capable of gathering high spatial, medium spectral resolution image cubes in the 0.25 to 5 micrometers waveband. The high spectral resolution spectrometer uses an echelle grating and a cross dispersing prism to achieve resolving powers of 1200 to 300 in the 1.9 to 5 micrometers band. Both sub-systems are passively cooled to 130 K and use two Sterling cycle coolers to enable two HgCdTe detector arrays to operate at 70 K. The mapper also uses a silicon back-side illuminated detector array to cover the ultra-violet to near-infrared optical band.© (1996) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

ISOCAM, the camera of the Infrared Space Observatory, will image the sky at various angular and spectral resolutions in the wavelength range 2.5 to 17 microns. We recall the main steps of the development, leading to the delivery of the flight model to ESA, and we outline some of the scientific programs to which it will be applied.

The Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) camera (ISOCAM) is designed to map selected regions of the sky in the spectral region from 2.5 to 17 μm at various spatial and spectral resolutions and at high sensitivity (at >4 μm

An infrared camera for use in ground based astronomical observations in the 1-5 microns region of the spectrum under low photon flux , has been developped in Meudon Observatory . This camera uses a 32 x 32 pixels InSb Charge Injection Device built by SAT (*) . We hereafter present a description of the camera , its performances and some results , recently obtained at OPMT and ESO with 2 and 2.2 m telescopes .© (1987) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.