VISTA (Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) is a 4-m class wide-field survey telescope equipped with a 16-detector VIRGO infrared camera, located at ESO's Cerro Paranal Observatory in Chile. CASU was responsible for processing all data obtained with VISTA, producing calibrated images and catalogues for the major ESO public surveys.
VISTA is a 4-metre wide-field survey telescope with an infrared camera, at ESO's Cerro Paranal Observatory in Chile. It is one of the most capable infrared survey telescopes in the world. The camera has 16 Raytheon VIRGO detectors of 2048×2048 pixels, each pixel 20 microns across, giving a pixel scale of 0.34″ (f/3.25) and 0.59 square degrees of sky per exposure.
Each detector is read out in 16 channels of 128×2048 pixels. The detectors are spaced 90% and 42.5% of a detector width apart, so six exposures (called pawprints) are needed to cover a continuous area (a tile) of 1.5 square degrees.
VISTA has eight filter slots, holding the broadband Z, Y, J, H and Ks filters and a narrow-band filter at 1.185 µm. The amount of data varies a lot from night to night, but was expected to average about 250 GB, with more than 600 GB on the busiest nights.
Instrument characteristics
| Detectors | 16 Raytheon VIRGO (HgCdTe on CdZnTe, 2048×2048 pixels) |
|---|---|
| Pixel scale | 0.34″ per pixel |
| Field of view | 1.5° × 1° (6 pawprints per tile) |
| Data volume | About 250 GB per night (over 600 GB at peak) |
| Filters | Z Y J H Ks NB1.18µm |
Data processing
CASU processed all the data taken with VISTA. Its VIRCAM pipeline produced calibrated images and source catalogues, which were made available through the ESO Science Archive and the VISTA Science Archive (VSA), run by the Wide-Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) in Edinburgh.
