AVAILABILITY OF ULTRACAM

ING announces the availability of ULTRACAM for service observations on the WHT on the nights of Nov 2, Nov 10 and Nov 13, 2003. The observations will be performed on a shared-risks basis in collaboration with Vik Dhillon
(Sheffield) and Tom Marsh (Warwick).

ULTRACAM is a CCD camera designed to provide imaging photometry at high temporal resolution in three different colours simultaneously. ULTRACAM mounts at the Cassegrain focus of the WHT and provides a 5 arcminute field on its three 1024x1024 CCDs (i.e. 0.3 arcseconds/pixel). Incident light is first collimated and then split into three different beams using a pair of dichroic beamsplitters. One beam is dedicated to the SDSS u' filter, another to the SDSS g' filter and the third to the SDSS r'/i'/z' filters, although it is possible to use clear filters in each beam to increase throughput. Because ULTRACAM employs frame-transfer chips, the dead-time between exposures is negligible (typically 25 milliseconds) and, using two small windows, it is possible to read the chips out at up to 500 frames per second. Each image taken by ULTRACAM is time-stamped using a dedicated GPS system to an accuracy of better than 50 microseconds and a pipeline data reduction system is provided to enable real-time assessment and full reduction of the light curves. 

For further information, please contact Vik Dhillon
(vik.dhillon@shef.ac.uk) or Tom Marsh (trm@astro.soton.ac.uk), or consult the ULTRACAM web pages (www.shef.ac.uk/~phys/people/vdhillon/ultracam),
where you will also find on-line user manuals and signal-to-noise/frame rate calculators.

All service proposals should be submitted using the standard ING service form which can found at 

http://www.ing.iac.es/Astronomy/observing/service/apply.html

and selecting the Ultracam link.  Proposals will be refereed on a rolling 
basis and will be accepted up to and including October 24th 2003. 

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