Blanco f/8 Instrumentation: NEWFIRM

By S. Points, A. Walker, M. Bonati

NEWFIRM is a wide-field (28 arcmin) near-IR imager that was a facility instrument on the Mayall telescope at KPNO from 2006 to 2010 and 2012 to 2016 and the Blanco telescope at CTIO from 2010 to 2011. CTIO was granted supplementary funding by the NSF to move NEWFIRM back to CTIO and refurbish it. See the article in the 25 February 2022 NOIRLab e-News for more information.

NEWFIRM has been mounted on its cart at Cerro Tololo and was successfully cooled in August 2022. The instrument mechanisms have been exercised while cold using the new instrument control software and the detectors receive light. Testing of the instrument cooling system and work on the detector controllers will continue through October and November 2022. 

The first on-sky commissioning at Blanco is scheduled for January 2023. After successful testing, we will issue a special call for Science Verification (SV) proposals for community observers for the 2023A semester.