Au cours d’une cérémonie qui s’est déroulée à l’ESO, le contrat de construction de la caméra MICADO (Multi-AO Imaging Camera for Deep Observations) a été signé entre Tim de Zeeuw, Directeur Général de l’ESO et Reinhard Genzel, Directeur du Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, et représentant du consortium qui préside à sa réalisation.
During a ceremony which took place at ESO, the contract for the construction of the MICADO (Multi-AO Imaging Camera for Deep Observations) camera was signed by Tim de Zeeuw, Director General of ESO and Reinhard Genzel, Director of the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik , and representative for the consortium which leads the construction.
This announcement was welcomed by the scientific community of the Paris Observatory, for which the E-ELT project is one of its scientific priorities.
Two of its scientific departments – the Laboratoire d’études spatiales et d’instrumentation en astrophysique (LESIA) and the Laboratoire Galaxies, Etoiles, Physique et Instrumentation (GEPI) are involved in the creation of MICADO, within the framework of the consortium.
The characteristics of MICADO
MICADO is a diffraction limited infrared camera for the E-ELT and has spectroscopic capabilities. Its design was driven by the requirements of very high sensitivity, very accurate astrometry and an excellent spectroscopic channel.
MICADO will thus be able to span a wide variety of astrophysical problems :
- with its high spatial resolution and exceptional sensitivity : study the environments and internal structures of galaxies and AGNs at large redshifts ;
- with its large field and its very accurated photometry, even in very rich fields of stars, analyze the history of star formation in local galaxies, by studying spatially resolved stellar populations ;
- with its very high angular resolution : follow the orbits and the internal kinematics of star clusters and neighbouring galaxies, penetrate closer to the supermassive black hole as well as the gas and stars in the galactic centre
Optimized to work with the mutiple conjugate adaptive optics system MAORY, MICADO can also work with other adaptive optical systems, and in particular has its own system of the SCAO ("single conjugate adaptive optics", i.e. on the axis and on the star), which it willl use during the first years of the instrument.
The LESIA and the GEPI of the Paris Observatory are collaborating with the Grenoble Institute of planetology and astrophysics (Institut de Planétologie et d’astrophysique de Grenoble - IPAG) à MICADO for the construction of the daptive optics system of the SCAO type as well as for the coronagraph mode of the instrument.