Prime Focus Imaging Platform (PFIP)

First light: November 1993. In 1999 the new WHT mosaic camera saw first light. This consists of two CCDs covering 16×16 arcminutes.

Last commissioning:

Designed and built by: RGO, with the assistance of Optical Surfaces Ltd for cementing the optics. The new WHT mosaic camera was designed and built by Simon Tulloch (RGO and ING).

Description: The Prime Focus Imaging Platform (PFIP), which includes a facility for multi-object spectroscopy with AUTOFIB-2 and WYFFOS, consists of the prime focus instrument platform, corrector and atmospheric dispersion corrector (ADC).

The new WHT mosaic camera has two 4k×2k EEV CCDs, covering 16 arcminutes at 0.24 arcsec/pixel.

Some scientific highlights:

• First detection of the optical counterpart of a gamma ray burst (1997)
• New evidence that galaxies formed early in the history of the universe (2000)
• Extending cosmic shear measurements with the William Herschel Telescope (2003)
• Andromeda X: A New Dwarf Spheroidal Satellite of M31 (2007)
• The Extreme Kuiper Belt Binary 2001 QW₃₂₂ (2008)
• The Galaxy Zoo and Hanny's Voorwerp (2008)