English (UK)
The Spanish astronomical community now has access to PANIC, the first wide-field infrared camera for European telescopes. Numerous scientific cases and new projects will benefit from its large field of view and the filters it includes, from extragalactic astronomy to the study of the Solar System. It is an ideal instrument for the development of large surveys, the study of star formation, gamma-ray bursts or the search for very distant quasars.
With a detector that captures light in the near-infrared range, from 0.8 to 2.5 microns (the human eye is sensitive to light between 0.4 and 0.7 micron), one is able to reach the regions of the Universe that are obscured by cosmic dust grains. It is as if this dust were “transparent” in the near-infrared range, allowing us to observe and to study optically invisible regions like the center of our Galaxy (and other galaxies) or the dense clouds where stars and planets are born. In addition to facilitating the study of celestial objects that are considered “cold”, because most of the energy radiated by those objects falls in the infrared range, for example: interstellar clouds, giant planets, the icy surfaces of planetary satellites or asteroids.
Starting from the 2nd 2025 semester, the Calar Alto Observatory offers the instrument on the 2.2 m telescope to all its users. In principle, the camera is designed for this telescope, although it could also be used at the 3.5 m telescope with excellent performance too.
PANIC is not a new instrument at Calar Alto, it started as a project which included a mosaic of four infrared 2K detectors (HAWAII-2RG™ model) which provided a total field of view of 31x31 arcminutes, with a scale of 0.45 arcsecond per pixel at the 2.2 m telescope (15x15 arcminutes, with a 0.22 arcsecond per pixel scale at the 3.5 m).
After its first light in November 2014, PANIC remained operational for Spanish and German users from April 2015 until July 2018, providing good performance and results. Considering that two of its four 2K detectors were suffering from degradation, which was impoverishing the cosmetics and scientific quality of the instrument, it was decided to upgrade its detectors with a larger, better quality sensor. In August 2018, PANIC traveled back to the MPIA (Germany) to be refurbished, changing its old detectors with a new technology device: a state-of-the-art monolithic 4K sensor (HAWAII-4RG™).
Such an upgrade is not a mere “plug and play” exchange, the new detector has a slightly smaller pixel pitch than the original, which means that, in order to minimize the impact on the optics of the instrument and to avoid modifications to the design, PANIC had to lose a few arcminutes in its field of view. But it still covers a pretty large field (26x26 arcminutes) in the near-infrared range, remaining a very powerful instrument.
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| Figure 1: Customized mount for the HAWAII-4RG™ monolithic detector. Credits: MPIA |
The process has also implied to design a new mount for the detector (Figure 1), adapting the readout electronics and the control and data acquisition software. In addition to testing, characterizing, and optimizing the detector, as well as integrating of course all of the above and testing the performance of the instrument in the laboratory. These tasks were carried out by the MPIA. PANIC returned to Calar Alto at the end of October 2022 and the commissioning at the 2.2 m telescope started again.
Moreover, the high-level software also had to be adapted and this was done from the IAA-CSIC. This software has been developed for planning the observations (Observation Tool), for the image interactive analysis during the observations (Quicklook), and for the final data reduction (PAPI, PANIC PIpeline).
The new work team, the so-called PANIC-4K team, based on a nucleus of the former PANIC team and new components as well, committed to see the project through to its end, offering it to the scientific community by 2025. The main objectives in this last phase were, on one hand to optimize the detector behaviour to obtain the best on-sky performance that can be offered and, on the other hand, to offer the user the option of a non-linear correction that extends the dynamic range of the detector nearly up to its saturation limit.
This very fruitful and close collaboration between CAHA, IAA, and MPIA made possible for the Calar Alto Observatory to offer the astronomical community not only a wide-field infrared camera for the Northern Hemisphere, but also very efficient and well tested software tools for the observers. It is the first camera able to take in one piece 4K images of the sky in the infrared!
The PANIC-4K team wants to send this message to the scientific community: “The current status of the camera, the performance of the instrument, such as the plate scale, the very large field of view, the image quality, and the little distortion over the entire field, coupled with the aforementioned software packages that facilitate on sky observations and data processing, all in all make PANIC-4K unique among the limited number of instruments of this type that exist today. It also opens a new and unique window to the sky of the Northern Hemisphere by being installed on one of the best telescopes for observing the sky from continental Europe. We are very satisfied after the successful commissioning.”
The instrument now enters its scientific exploitation phase. The observations with PANIC will allow the national and international astronomical community to undertake novel and original scientific projects.
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Part of the PANIC-4K team in CAHA after the successful installation of the instrument at the 2.2 telescope. Credits: PANIC-4K team
Waning gibbous moon on January 19th, 2025, sub-window of 26x9 arcminutes. Credits: S. Muñoz-Torres and PANIC-4K Team
➡️ Interested in observing with PANIC-4K?
➡️ ¿Want to know more about its current performance and what it can offer for your science?
➡️ Just curious about the project history and the team behind?
➡️ Please visit the instrument web page for more extensive information about this camera at
PUBLICATION
Cárdenas, C., PhD thesis (October 2018)
CONTACT
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy Heidelberg (MPIA)
Conchi Cárdenas
Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC)
Matilde Fernández
Calar Alto Observatory
Ana Guijarro
The Calar Alto Observatory is one of the infrastructures that belong to the national map of Unique Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (Spanish acronym: ICTS), approved on March 11th, 2022, by the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Council (CPCTI).
COMMUNICATION – CALAR ALTO OBSERVATORY
CAHA-15-CE-3902