Proc SPIE 4850 179-190 (2003)
akehiko Wada, Naofumi Fujishiro, Hirokazu Kataza, Woojung Kim, Hideo Matsuhara, Toshio Matsumoto, Hiroshi Murakami, Hidenori Watarai, The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science Daisuke Ishihara, Takashi Onaka, Norihide Takeyama, School of Science,The University of Tokyo Kazunori Uemizu, Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory Munetaka Ueno, School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo
The infrared camera (IRC) onboard ASTRO-F is designed for wide-field imaging and spectroscopic observations
at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths. The IRC consists of three channels; NIR, MIR-S and MIR-L,
each of which covers wavelengths of 2-5, 5-12 and 12-26 micron, respectively. All channels adopt compact refractive optical designs.
Large format array detectors (InSb 512x412 and Si:As IBC 256x256) are employed.
Each channel has 10x10 arcmin wide FOV with diffraction-limited angular resolution of the 67cm telescope of ASTRO-F at wavelengths over 5 micron.
A 6-position filter wheel is placed at the aperture stop in each channel, and has three band-pass filters, two grisms /
prisms and a mask for dark current measurements. The 5 sigma sensitivity of one pointed observation is estimated to be 2,
11 and 62 micro-Jy at 4, 9, 20 micron bands, respectively. Because ASTRO-F is a low-earth orbiting satellite,
the observing duration of each pointing is limited to 500 seconds. In addition to pointed observations,
we plan to perform mid-infrared scanning observation. Fabrications of the flight-model of NIR, MIR-S,
and the warm electronics have been mostly completed, while that of MIR-L is underway. The performance evaluation of the IRC
in the first end-to-end test (including the satellite system) is presented.
Keywords: infrared astronomy, infrared camera, infrared instrumentation, space mission, ASTRO-F
