10 and 20 micron imaging with arrays

Abstract

We discuss imaging with arrays in the thermal IR. Aspects of the design and performance of the 'Golden Gopher', an infrared array camera are presented. This instrument operates in a high-background environment, for ground-based astronomical imaging from 5 to 27 micrometers. It is built around a 20 x 64 element Si:As Impurity Band Conduction (IBC) device manufactured by GenCorp Aerojet Electronic Systems Division, and has a noise-equivalent flux density (NEFD) of 23.5 mJy (min(exp -1/2) (arcsec(exp -2) at lambda = 10 micrometers, delta-lambda = 1 micrometer, on the Mt. Lemmon 1.5m telescope. We present and discuss a sample of the data. In addition we discuss the design and expected performance of the 'Long Wavelength Spectrometer' which is now under construction for the Keck telescope.