Instruments by Telescope

See Instruments by type

Check the NOAO site to make sure that your favorite instrument and telescope are available before writing your proposal!

Blanco 4-m Telescope Instruments

Availability of the Blanco in 2012A: Starting 20 Feb 2012, CTIO will shut down the Blanco 4-m for several months for
the installation and commissioning of the Dark Energy Camera (DECam). Due to the complexity of this installation, involving
significant work to the telescope structure and control systems, the telescope will be unavailable for most of the 2012A
semester. We anticipate roughly four weeks of community time in 2012A (in June or July) with f/8, during which we will
make Hydra and ISPI available for community use, although probably via service or remote observing to maintain flexibility
in the telescope and DECam commissioning schedule. For more information see the article by Chris Smith on page 20
of the September 2011 issue of the NOAO Newsletter.

Instrument FOV or slit
(arcmin)
Resolving Power or Scale
(arcsec/pix)
Detector Wavelegth range
(micron)
Status
DECam
Wide field
optical imager
132x132 0.27 62x
2048x4096
CCDs
0.32-1.10
(grizy filters)
Commissioning,
Science Verification, & Available 2012B

 
ISPI 
IR imager
10.25x10.25 0.3 HAWAII-2 
2048X2048
4-m R-C
1.0-2.4
(JHKs + narrow band filters)
Unavailable 2012B
(due to f/8 incident)
Hydra
Multi-object optical 
spectrograph
40
140 fibers
<50,000 SITe 4Kx2K  (*)  0.32-0.90 Unavailable 2012B
(due to f/8 incident)

  (*) These detectors are going to be changed.

 

SOAR Instruments

See also:
Observing at SOAR
SOAR Instrumentation
SOAR Instrument Setup Forms and Observing Reports
SOAR Adaptive Module (SAM)

Instrument FOV or slit
(arcmin)
Resolving Power or Scale
(arcsec/pix)
Detector Wavelength range 
(micron)
Status
SOI 
Optical imager
5.25x5.25 0.077 E2V CCD 
mini-mosaic 
2x 4096x2048
0.31-1.05 Available 2012B
Goodman
HTS

Optical imager
7.2 diameter 0.15 Fairchild CCD 
4096x4096
0.36-0.92 Available 2012B
Goodman HST
Optical 
spectrograph
3.0x5.0 VPH gratings
1,400-6,000
Fairchild CCD 
4096x4096
0.36-0.92 Available 2012B
(single slit mode)
Spartan 
IR imager
3.0x3.0 (f/21)
5.0x5.0 (f/12)
0.043 (f/21)
0.073 (f/12)
HAWAII-2 HgCdTe 
mosaic 
4x 2048X2048
1.0-2.2
(JHK + narrow band filters)
Available 2012B
OSIRIS
IR imager
3.2X3.2
1.3X1.3
0.321
0.139
NICMOS4
HgCdTe 1024x1024
1.0-2.5
(YJHKKs + narrow band filters)
Available 2012B
OSIRIS
IR spectrograph
175x0.98
66x0.41
24x0.98
1,200-3,000
1,400 X-disp
HgCdTe 
1024x1024
1.0-2.2
(YJHKKs + narrow band filters)
Available 2012B
SIFS 
Optical 
spectrograph
IFU
7.8X1.5@0.3" 
3.9X7.5@0.15"
 VPH gratings
1,000-30,000
CCD mini-mosaic
2x4096x4096
0.32-0.85 Commissioning 2012B

 

SMARTS Instruments

Telescope Instrument Slit or FOV (arcmin) Resolving Power or scale
(arcsec/pix)
Wavelength range (micron)
or Filters
Observing Mode
1.5-m
(60-inch)  
1.5-m R-C
Spectrograph
 
 single slit 1.5 <10,000 0.32-0.90 Entirely service/queue mode. 

See Observing Constraints

CHIRON Spectrograph one star <80,000 0.41-0.87
1.3-m
(ex-2MASS)
ANDICAM
Optical imager
2.4x2.4 0.274
(Binning 2x2)
BVRI Entirely service/queue mode
ANDICAM 
IR imager
6.0x6.0 0.369
(Binning 2x2)
YJHK
1.0-m
ex-YALO
Y4K CAM
Optical imager
20.0x20.0 0.289 BVRcIc
SDSS ugriz
U+CuSO4
Classical only. Observers may be asked to observe ~1 hour/night for "spill-over" 
programs from the 1.3m, requested time will be extended in compensation.
0.9-m
(36-inch)
CFCCD 2K
Optical imager
13.6x13.6 0.401 0.31-1.00 Mixture of classical and service/queue observing, each run is 7 nights duration.

CTIO Instruments No Longer Available

CTIO Mosaic II - optical wide field imager (inactive)
4-m RC Spectrograph (retired)
NEWFIRM - infrared wide field imager (transfered back to Mayall 4-m at Kitt Peak)