The IRCAM series of 1-5 micron imagers has been in heavy use at UKIRT for over a decade. The first IRCAM was commissioned in 1986 (McLean et al. 1986, Instrumentation in Astronomy VI, Proc. SPIE, Vol. 627). The camera had a 58x62 InSb array and replaced the single channel photometers UKT6 and UKT9, which were formally retired in 1994. In this same year, 1994, IRCAM was upgraded to a 256x256 InSb array and fitted with a new array controller, ALICE (Puxley et al. 1994, Instrumentation in Astronomy VIII, Proc. SPIE, Vol. 2198). Following the successful commissioning of UFTI, UKIRT's fast-track 1024x1024 HgCdTe imager in 1998, IRCAM's optics were changed resulting in a smaller pixel scale of 0.08"/pixel and the removal of the external warm mirrors (see Figure 1). These changes made better use of the improved image quality of the telescope (following the upgrades of the late 90's), and made observing in the thermal more efficient.

Until the arrival of UFTI, IRCAM was used typically for 35% of the PATT nights on the telescope, and it accounted for a similar percentage of the UKIRT publications, about 30 papers a year. Even in the UFTI-era, IRCAM data continued to contribute about 20 papers a year as astronomers continue to take and/or analyse IRCAM data.

IRCAM has been used to study a remarkable range of astronomical phenomena. A survey of ApJ Letters and Nature papers published between 1992 and 2001 shows that 25 acknowledge IRCAM data. These include cosmological work (e.g. "Faint galaxies: evolution and cosmic curvature", a 1992 Nature paper by Broadhurst, Ellis, & Glazebrook), follow-up of transient phenomena (e.g. "The effect of magnetic fields on gamma-ray bursts inferred from multi-wavelength observations of the burst of 23 January 1999", in Nature by Galama et al.), star formation and YSO studies (e.g. "A new molecular hydrogen outflow in Serpens" a 1997 ApJ Letter by Herbst, Beckwith, & Robberto), polarimetry studies (e.g. "Imaging Polarimetric Observations of a New Circumstellar Disk System", a 2001 ApJ Letter by Kuhn, Potter & Parise), and stars and brown dwarfs, including the confirmation of the first field T dwarf ("The discovery of a field methane dwarf from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey commissioning data", a 1999 ApJ Letter by Strauss et al.).

IRCAM ended its career in an exciting way, which took advantage of its capability for fast readout. On IRCAM's very last night of use at UKIRT, August 20th 2002, it was used in an international multi-telescope campaign to observe the occultation of a star known as P131.1 by Pluto. The goal of the observations was to look for changes in Pluto's (predominantly nitrogen) atmosphere, as well as to measure Pluto's size. Figure 2 shows images of Pluto and Charon occulting the star. The observing team at UKIRT was Dave Tholen (UH Manoa) and Dave Osip (MIT). THe UH 0.6m and 2.2m telescopes and the NASA IRTF telescope on Mauna Kea were also used (observers were Jim Elliot, Kelly Clancy, Michael Person and Shen Qu [MIT], Jay Pasachoff, Bryce Babcock, and David Ticehurst [Williams College]). On the mainland, the consortium had sites at Palomar, Lick and Lowell Observatories monitoring the occultation, although Pluto was quite low in the sky. The results will be announced when the consortium has had time to analyse their data; meanwhile, there is a news article at http://skyandtelescope.com/news/current/article_718_1.asp.

FIGURE 2: H-band images of Pluto occulting star P131.1 on August 20th (Hawaii Standard Time). North is to the right and East is up. The vertical dimension of each image is ~4 arcsec. The image on the left is taken 37 minutes before the central image; the image on the right 79 minutes after the central image. In each image, Pluto and Charon appear unresolved; they transit the star from upper right to lower left.

This multi-telescope, time-critical collaboration was indeed a fitting end to IRCAM's many years of superlative service to UKIRT, UK astronomers and infrared astronomy in general.

View from the Top

Thor Wold

Our shortened semester 02A is history, and historic perhaps in the amount of bad weather we encountered. At least the wettest winter and spring of the last nine years or so. It reminded me of how the weather used to be in the latter 1980s, although I cannot say if it is any worse than that. Perhaps we are being spoiled by global warming, El Ninos and such?

The upcountry benefitted from this. The pasturelands and scrub forest were looking the best they have in years, and the reservoir at the bottom of the Mauna Kea Access Road actually had enough water in it to notice. Again, this used to be at least three-quarters full most of the time back in the late '80s. The upcountry through the whole state has been under a severe drought for years. We are now back into more normal summer weather, and the long grass which was so lush, green and thick through spring has turned brown and gone to seed. One wonders what the upcoming fall and winter might bring. The current El Nino is now said to be rather weak, and co-incident with the cooler end of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

The new Mohouli Street extension was opened back in April. This enables visitors to get from the office to Kaumana Drive and Saddle Road much easier and much more directly. It connects to Komohana Street at the stoplight about a block north of the JAC office and University Park and connects to Kaumana at the intersection where the Union 76 gas station we use is located. Beware, though--this is the widest, best-lit, least amount of side traffic, 35-mph-speed-zone on the planet! A perfect speed trap.

Meantime, work continues on the Puainako Street extension, which will take another year or more to complete. This will enable traffic to Hale Pohaku to go from Komohana south out of University Park and bypass all of the lower Kaumana Drive winding road, connecting to Saddle Road at the seven mile mark.

Additionally, the much-awaited renovation of Saddle Road itself is finally about to begin, after being delayed by court action, although it will be years before the eastern end is improved.

Groundbreaking is near for the new planetarium at University Park. This will be just across the street from the JAC offices.

At this writing (late August), the UIST team is here and lab-testing has begun. We will be starting testing on the telescope in less than a month. Got my fingers crossed that we will get some decent weather for the commissioning. Meanwhile, we are into the last few months of Michelle's first tenure on UKIRT. It will be worked on here in October and November, prior to being moved over to Gemini. We are always busy here; this just means there will be a bit more lively winter coming up.

We are also committed to going into flexed observing starting with semester 03A in February. Observers who apply for time will notice they will be asked for detailed information relating to acceptable observing conditions to achieve their results, starting with the current application process. Details and further information on the process are available at http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/publications/Flex.htm. Please take note of the article in this Newsletter (above) by Dr. Jane Buckle, describing this further. These changes are significant.

No doubt all of this will be challenging to those of us on the operations side. However, we still do have a great team and I am sure you will continue to find your UKIRT experience to be a rewarding one!

Aloha!

Arrivals & Departures

JAC bids a fond Aloha to Professor Ian Robson...

Prof. Ian Robson and Prof. Hiroshi Kuroji at the signing of the UKIRT/NAOJ agreement on exchanging telescope time for three WFCAM arrays.

After a period of almost ten years as Director of both JAC and JCMT, Ian Robson returns to the UK in September 2002, to take up the Deputy Directorship of the UKATC in Edinburgh. Although the majority of Ian's time was devoted to the JCMT, UKIRT nonetheless owes much of the success of its forward-looking instrumentation programme to Ian's work on its behalf, and the results of this programme are now coming to fruition with the arrival of Michelle and UIST. Ian's thorough knowledge of the PPARC system and his excellent relations with the UKIRT Board were hard to overstate, through a period which included some turbulent times and major changes in the UKIRT Operations staffing. We wish Ian well, and look forward to our new position as his Customers, as the WFCAM project nears completion.

...and Welcomes Professor Gary Davis
as the new Director of JAC.

Ian will be replaced by Gary Davis, most lately of U Saskatchewan. Gary will occupy the same position as Ian - assuming the directorship of both JAC and JCMT. Gary has been a long-time JCMT user, and brings with him considerable experience of international instrumentation projects. Unfortunately, Gary has been experiencing the usual hassles of moving to Hilo; we look forward to developing a strong working team once the dust settles!

2002 has also seen changes to the now-joint UKIRT/JCMT software group. Malcolm Currie, who developed the imaging data reduction recipes for ORAC-DR, returned to the UK after more than three years in Hilo. With Malcolm around we could always rely on a speedy response to a software fault, especially in the evenings, and there being someone after you to lock up at JAC when working late. His work with ORAC and his attention to detail will be sorely missed (his unfathomable interest in Arsenal probably wont!). We wish him well at his new post in Oxford.

Shaun de Witt arrived in Hilo this summer to work on the OT and the QT (which will be shared by UKIRT and the JCMT). Shaun is accompanied by his wife, Jackie, and his two kids, Louie and Bill. After only a few months in Hilo, he's already signed up for AYSO soccer - we're confident that he'll be eating Poi and speaking Pidgin in no time!

Finally, after an exciting year at JAC with Michelle, Alistair Glasse will spend a few months at Gemini helping with the Michelle move from UKIRT before returning to the ATC in Edinburgh early next year.