Author/Authors :
T. Wada ، نويسنده , , S. Fujita، نويسنده , , H. Kataza، نويسنده , , W. Kim، نويسنده , , I. Maeda، نويسنده , , H. Matsuhara، نويسنده , , T. Matsumoto، نويسنده , , H. Murakami، نويسنده , , K. Uemizu، نويسنده , , H. Watarai، نويسنده , , D. Ishihara، نويسنده , , T. Negishi and A. Inoue، نويسنده , , T. Onaka، نويسنده , , T. Ootsubo، نويسنده , , H. Takeyama، نويسنده , , M. Ueno، نويسنده ,
Abstract :
The design and the current development status of the Infrared Camera (IRC) onboard ASTRO-F is described. The IRC is designed for wide field imaging and slit-less spectroscopic observations at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths. The IRC consists of three channels, NIR, MIR-S and MIR-L, which cover wavelengths of 2–5, 5–12 and 12–26 micron, respectively. All of them consist of refractive optics. State-of-the-art large format array detectors are placed at the focal plane. Each channel has 10 × 10 arcmin wide field-of-view with diffraction-limited spatial resolution of 70 cm aperture of ASTRO-F telescope at wavelengths over 5 micron. We plan to have more than 7000 pointing observations dedicated for the IRC. The observational time of each pointing is limited to 500 seconds because of its low earth sun-synchronous polar orbit. The 5 sigma sensitivity of one pointing observation is estimated to be 2, 30 and 120 micro-Jy at 5, 9, 20 micron bands, respectively. Fabrication of the prototype model has been completed, and the performance tests are underway.
