Cambridge Infra Red Survey Instrument (CIRSI)

First light: January 1998.

Last commissioning: 

Designed and built by: Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge.

Description: CIRSI is a panomaric wide field camera based on a mosaic of 4 Rockwell HgCdTl 1024×1024 arrays. The absence of cold fore optics limits its use in the thermal infrared, but its collecting area makes it a highly competitive instrument in the near infrared. It is particularly well-suited for surveys of star-forming regions, low mass stars, distant galaxies, clusters and quasars.

More information: http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~optics/cirsi/

More photos of this instrument: http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/archive/wht/instruments.html