The WIRCam project officially started in late 2001 after some preliminary studies. This camera has four 20482048 HAWAII-2RG HgCdTe detector arrays, with a 20' field of view, and 0.3˝ pixel resolution. It is so far one of the largest format infrared camera in the world. The camera optics is cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures to suppress the infrared background. With the new on-chip guiding capability of the IR array, the camera can provide a 50 Hz tip-tilt correction and also micro-dithering observation. In 2005, the WIRCam was installed and commissioned on CFHT. The camera is now fully functional for scientific observations. The limiting magnitude in Ks band for a 10 sigma detection in a 1 hour exposure under 0.7 arcsecond seeing is about 23.1(AB magnitude). |