Overview of NICI's capabilities

NICI, the Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager, is a dual-channel, near-infrared coronagraphic imager for use on Gemini South. It was built by Mauna Kea Infrared (MKIR). NICI arrived on Cerro Pachon in January 2007 and obtained "first light" on February 20th, 2007. It is has been undergoing an extensive period of commissioning, instrument performance characterization and optimization which is expected to be completed during 2009A.

NICI is a specialized dual-channel camera with a dedicated Lyot coronagraph and 85-element curvature adaptive optics system optimized to search for and image large Jovian-type planets around nearby stars by spectrally differencing two images taken simultaneously in- and outside the strong near-infrared methane features found in substellar objects cooler than 1400 K. The design philosophy integrates the three major subsystems (AO relay, coronagraph, and dual-channel camera) to keep non-common path aberrations small, and to be limited only by the residual atmospheric wavefront and scattering. Optical scattering and ghosts are minimized by using off-axis parabola instead of lenses. Both channels are equipped with a 1024x1024 ALADDIN InSb array (1 -5 μm). For both channels, the imaging plate scale is 18 mas/pix, and the field of view 18x18 arcsec squared. A variety of broad- and narrow band filters are available. In particular, narrow band filters sampling the methane absorption band at 1.6 μm.

The Instrument Scientist for NICI is Tom Hayward.

Announcements

NICI will be offered for the first time on a shared risk basis in 2009A. See the Status and Availability pages.

How to use these pages

The NICI pages are organized as follows:

• Status and Availability: Modes available in the current and upcoming semesters; links to news items
• Imaging: Components used in NICI's imaging modes and guidance on how best to use the instrument in this mode
• Sensitivity and Overheads: Sensitivity tables, integration time calculator, and details of observing overheads
• Calibration: How to calibrate NICI observations
• Observation Preparation: How to configure NICI in the Observing Tool
• Data Format and Reduction: Examples of NICI data and links to data reduction resources
• Documents: NICI design documents and references

Also see the Near-IR Resources section, which contains generic information about observing at 1-5um as well as details about calibrations, standard stars, etc. that apply to NICI, NIRI, NIFS, GNIRS, Phoenix and FLAMINGOS-2.

Last update: 1 Sep 2008, M. Hartung

Created: 4 Jan 2006; Phil Puxley