Instrumentation

I have had the fortune to be an active member in four ground-based telescope instrument projects (IRIS, OSIRIS, SHARC, and Lick OSETI). Astronomical instruments in the 21st century are complicated beasts that use cutting-edge technology in optics, mechanical devices, electronics, and detectors. To design, construct, and install an astronomical instrument takes years of effort and MANY team members with a range of expertise. It is definitely a group effort! On this webpage I briefly describe instrument projects for which I have taken particular interest. For more information on any of these instruments please visit their websites.

IRIS is a first light instrument for the future Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). The IRIS science instrument suite will include a near-infrared (0.88 - 2.4 microns) imaging camera and integral field spectrograph (IFS), which are both designed to sample the high spatial resolution achieved with TMT's advanced adaptive optics (AO) system. I have been part of the IRIS team since June 2008, where my leading roles have been developing the sensitivity calculator and 3D data simulator, and investigating science cases and astrometric accuracies.

For further information, please visit IRIS's website.

OSIRIS is a near-infrared (0.95 - 2.4 microns) imaging camera and integral field spectrograph to sample the diffraction-limit of the Keck (10-m) telescope. OSIRIS was the first lenslet array integral field spectrogrpah used behind an adaptive optics system in the world. OSIRIS was commissioned behind the Keck II AO system on February 21, 2005. I joined the OSIRIS team September 2004. My involvement with OSIRIS included final assembly, acceptance testing (pre-ship report below), and commissioning the instrument at Keck. I was one of the participants in the development and public release of OSIRIS's data reduction pipeline. If you would like to know more about OSIRIS please see the following sites.

General OSIRIS information and software downloads:
OSIRIS website at UCLA
OSIRIS website at Keck
OSIRIS User Group Wiki page - Post questions and comments

Technical documents about OSIRIS:
OSIRIS Pre-ship Report (PDF) and Kbb-100 New Pupil PDF)

Further OSIRIS items:
OSIRIS Observing logs (PDF) - My latest version of OSIRIS logs
Presentation of Pipeline Introduction (PDF) - Workshop 2008 (UCSC)
Presentation of Kinematics Workshop (PDF) - Workshop 2009 (UCLA)
OSIRIS Pipeline Tutorial Document(PDF) - Instructions for tutorial
Email me if you would like the data set for the tutorial (0.5 GB)

SHARC is an engineering-based near-infrared (1-2.4 um) diffraction-limited imaging camera that was originally intended for developing the Keck II Adaptive Optics systems. SHARC's development was stalled with the completion and delivery of NIRC2 and OSIRIS to Keck II. However, in June 2005 the Keck AO team requested that SHARC was completed for first light of the new Keck I AO system, since Keck I had no diffraction-limited cameras. Resurrecting the SHARC instrument project became a leading portion of my graduate thesis, where I was involved with assembly, acceptance testing, and installation of the imaging camera on Keck I. SHARC was delivered in time for successful commission of the Keck I AO system (first light May 2006), and is still actively used as an engineering camera.

SHARC primarily differs from OSIRIS's imager since it uses an "engineering" grade Hawaii-I detector. SHARC has a platescale of 0.018"/pixel, with an effective field of view of 15.0" x 18.6" (removing detector artifacts). There are 3 neutral density filters, 5 broadband (20%), 8 narrowband filters (5%), and 2 line specific filters (1% - HeI and FeII). In addition, we designed and installed two coronagraphic stop (1" and 2" in size), which are located in the AO focal plane.

For further information please visit SHARC's website and see SHARC's Pre-Ship Report.

The Lick optical SETI instrument is a triple photometer device installed on the Nickel (1m) telescope at Lick Observatory. The instrument uses high speed (0.8 ns) photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), amplifiers, and a coincident logic board to search for photons that arrive in the same nanosecond time bin at all three PMTs. The Lick OSETI triple PMT design was the first of its kind, and it significantly reduced the false detections that were previously plaguing optical SETI detectors. The premise of this instrument is to search for ETI signals which would use strong pulsed optical laser signals at nanosecond (or faster) intervals that can be distinguished from astrophysical sources. I took part in the construction, installation, and first observations of the Lick OSETI instrument as part of my undergraduate thesis. The Lick OSETI website contains the majority of my thesis - and goes into greater detail regarding optical SETI and this instrument. Since first light the Lick OSETI instrument has observed over 4,000 nearby stars for ETI signals - as you know, we have had no contact as of yet. However, there are current plan for investigating a new Optical and Near-Infrared SETI project at Lick Observatory with the SETI Institute.

For further information please visit Lick OSETI's website.