Spanish observatory gets gigapixel camera

Dec. 14, 2011
e2v (Chelmsford,UK) has signed a multimillion dollar contract to supply a complete camera system that will be installed at the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre’s telescope near Teruel in Spain.

e2v (Chelmsford,UK) has signed a multimillion dollar contract to supply a complete camera system that will be installed at the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre’s telescope near Teruel in Spain.

The camera will be used in the so-called "Javalambre Physics-of-the-Accelerating-Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS)" project, a five-year survey of the northern sky that will be performed on the observatory’s new wide-field 2.5-mtelescope.

Funded by a consortium of Spanish and Brazilian astronomy institutes, J-PAS will be dedicated to creating a map of the observable universe in 56 continuous wavebands from 350 to 1000 nm.

The Gigapixel cryogenically cooled camera -- which will be designed and built by e2v -- will use 14 newly developed 9k x 9k pixel e2v CCD290-99CCD imaging sensors.

The devices, which will be back-thinned and given a multilayer, antireflection coating, will be assembled into a mosaic, providing an image area that is nearly 0.5 m in diameter.

-- By Dave Wilson, Senior Editor,Vision Systems Design

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