CCD Camera

First light: September 1985.

Last commissioning:31 July 2003.

Designed and built by: RGO.

Description: The JKT is operated east of pier, with the f/15 secondary, and with the JKT Acquisition and Guiding unit (JAG) mounted at Cassegrain. The JAG holds the autoguider, the acquisition TV, the CCD shutter, and the filter wheel with 6 slots for 50x50mm filters. When the acquisition TV is in use, the light path to the CCD is blocked. 

The CCD cryostat is mounted under the JAG. Currently, the default detector is SITe2, a device with 2048x2048 24 microns pixels. For SITe2 the image scale is 0.33 arcsec/pixel, giving an unvignetted field of view of about 10x10 arcmin.

Some scientific highlights:

• Shell galaxies (1992)
• The brightest object ever observed (1998)
• Gamma-Ray Burst 990123 (1999)
• The Coolest Known Halo White Dwarf (2000)
• Comet Linear Blows Up in Full View of the JKT (2000)
• A photometric and spectroscopic study of dwarf and giant galaxies in the Coma cluster (2003)
• Direct confirmation of two pattern speeds in the double-barred galaxy NGC 2950 (2003)
• Slow Motion Mergers in Galaxy Clusters Provide Conditions to Transform Spirals into Smooth Disks (2006)
• The H-alpha Galaxy Survey (2008)