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Overview of Instrumentation at ING

This page provides an overview of the instrumentation at the WHT and INT. Further information about a given instrument can be obtained by clicking on the instrument name, or by emailing one of the listed instrument specialists.

At the INT, the usual instruments (IDS, WFC) are offered in 2021B.

At the WHT, it is expected that commissioning and science verification of the new multi-object spectrograph WEAVE will begin in June 2021, and the WEAVE science surveys should start a few months later.

From then on, a long-term average of 70% of the time at the WHT will be devoted to the WEAVE surveys. The remaining 30% of the time will be available for 'open time' community observing with the current Cassegrain instruments (ISIS, LIRIS, ACAM) or with visiting instruments, or with WEAVE itself. Open time will not be advertised until WEAVE is commissioned. Because of instrument-change overheads, WEAVE will probably be mounted on the telescope for periods ~ 9 months at a time. On current plans, the first such period of observing with WEAVE will not end before early-2022.

The latest news about the ongoing evolution of the instrumentation at the WHT and INT (following a 2014 poll of the community) can be found on the ING instrumentation update page.

Information about how to apply for telescope time can be found on the applying for telescope time page.

Notes (§) about specific instruments and procedures can be found at the bottom of this page.

Information about instruments no longer offered at ING (e.g. the multi-object spectrograph AF2) can be found on the page about past, present and future instruments.



Spectroscopy
Instrument/Contacts Wavelength
range		 Resolving
power (§7)		 Slit length Detector (§5) Comments
4.2-m William Herschel Telescope
Manager: Benn
ISIS
Specialists: Skillen / Benn
3000 - 10000 Å 600 < R < 12700 4' Red: Red+
Blue: EEV12
Red or Blue:
Qucam3, Qucam2 		Long-slit spectroscopy;
spectro and imaging polarimetry;
fast spectroscopy; image-slicer
LIRIS (§1)
Specialists: Dominguez / Fariña
9000 - 24000 Å 1000 < R < 3000 4.2' HgCdTe Long-slit spectroscopy;
multi-object spectroscopy;
spectro and imaging polarimetry
ACAM (§2)
Specialists: Benn / Domínguez  
3500 - 9400 Å R ~ 400 6' AUXCAM Long-slit spectroscopy
WEAVE (to be commissioned in 2020)
Specialists: Benn / Domínguez / Fariña  
3660 - 9590 Å R ~ 5000, 20000 EEV CCDs MOS (up to 960 fibres) and IFU spectroscopy
2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope
Manager: Fariña
IDS
Specialists: Domínguez / Fariña
3000 - 10000 Å 700 < R < 10000 3.3' Red+2 (or EEV10)
 Long-slit spectroscopy


Imaging
Instrument/Contacts Detector (§5) Filters (§6) Scale ("/pixel) Field-of-view
4.2-m William Herschel Telescope
Manager: Benn
ACAM (§2)
Specialists: Benn / Domínguez  
AUXCAM Most ING filters, see database 0.25 8'.3
LIRIS
Specialists: Dominguez / Fariña
HgCdTe ZJHK_s
and 8 narrow-band		 0.25 4'.27
2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope
Manager: Fariña
Wide Field Camera (§3)
Specialists: Vaduvescu /
EEV See database 0.33 33'.8 x 33'.8


Visitor Instruments (§4)
InstrumentDescription Institute Contact
4.2-m William Herschel Telescope
Manager: Benn
GHaFaS Fabry-Perot Hα imager IAC John Beckman, Alex Oscoz
PAUCam(§8) Prime-focus imager (1 deg field of view) IFAE Francisco Castander
PN.S Slitless counter-dispersed spectrograph Kapteyn Magda Arnaboldi


SIGNAL can be used to calculate exposure times for most telescope/instrument/detector combinations.

§ Notes

  1. LIRIS: slit-mask preparation and manufacture takes approximately eleven weeks; PIs awarded time in multi-slit mode are strongly encouraged to initiate the design of slit masks at the earliest opportunity. Information about slit-mask design and timelines is given here. As of semester 2014B, the cost of manufacturing the slit masks (600 - 900 euros per mask) must be covered by the home institution of the proposing team.
  2. ACAM: observations can be made at any time, except when an instrument is mounted at WHT prime focus.
  3. INT WFC: offered at rotator angle 180 degrees only. When there is compelling scientific justification, other rotator angles (0, 90 or 270-degrees) can be offered for the duration of the run; changes to the rotator angle within a run are not permitted.
  4. Visitor instruments: the list in the table above includes those instruments whose teams have expressed an interest in collaborative proposals. Prospective applicants should in the first instance contact the relevant person named in the above table. Applicants wishing to submit a proposal based on a new (to ING) visitor instrument should follow these instructions. After 2016B, visiting instruments requiring a Nasmyth focus have been hosted on the GRACE Nasmyth platform (rather than GHRIL).
  5. CCDs: specifications and technical details are given on the ING detectors page.
  6. Filters: details are given on the ING filters page.
  7. Spectroscopic resolutions quoted for ISIS, LIRIS, ACAM and IDS assume a 1-arcsec slit.
  8. PAUCam was successfully commissioned at WHT prime focus in 2016. Observers interested in using PAUCam should contact Francisco Castander at the email address above, for advice about any technical issues not covered on the PAUCam web pages, and also for advice about the likely timing of PAUCam survey runs during the coming semester. All scheduled observations will be carried out by the PAUCam team.


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Contact:  (Head of Astronomy)
Last modified: 15 February 2021