William Herschel Infra-Red Camera (WHIRCAM)

First light:  February 1995. First scheduled observing: September 1995.

De-commissioned: 1999.

Designed and built by: Oxford University. Internal optics were designed by Eli Atad (ROE).

Description: WHIRCAM is an infrared imaging camera, based on a Santa Barbara Research Corporation (SBRC) 256 × 256 element InSb array. WHIRCAM also serves as the science detector for the Durham prototype adaptive-optics system MARTINI and ELECTRA.

Some scientific highlights: The Search for Extrasolar very Low-mas Objects

More information: http://www.ing.iac.es/~crb/wht/whircam.html

More photos of this instrument: http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/archive/wht/instruments.html