Showing papers by "Philip W. Lucas published in 2003"
TL;DR: UFTI as mentioned in this paper is based around a 1k Rockwell Hawaii detector and a LSR Astrocam controller and uses the new Mauna Kea optimized J,H,K filter set along with I and Z broad-band filters and several narrow-band line filters.
Abstract: In 1996, it was proposed to build a near-infrared imager for the 38-m UK Infrared Telescope in Hawaii, to exploit the 1024 pixel format detectors that were then becoming available In order to achieve a fast delivery, the instrument was kept simple and existing designs were reused or modified where possible UFTI was delivered within 25 years of the project start The instrument is based around a 1k Rockwell Hawaii detector and a LSR Astrocam controller and uses the new Mauna Kea optimized J,H,K filter set along with I and Z broad-band filters and several narrow-band line filters The instrument is cooled by a CTI cry-cooler, while the mechanisms are operated by cold, internal, Bergelahr stepping motors On UKIRT it can be coupled to a Fabry-Perot etalon for tunable narrow-band imaging at K, or a waveplate for imaging polarimetry through 1-25 μm; the cold analyzer is a Barium Borate Wollaston prism UFTI was designed to take full advantage of the good image quality delivered by UKIRT on conclusion of the upgrades program, and has a fine scale of 009 arcsec/pixel It is used within the UKIRT observatory environment and was the first instrument integrated into ORAC, the Observatory Reduction and Acquisition Control System Results obtained during instrument characterization in the lab and over the last 3 years on UKIRT are presented, along with performance figures UFTI has now been used on UKIRT for several hundred nights, and aspects of instrument performance are discussed
40 citations
TL;DR: The Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SOPIE) as mentioned in this paper have published a survey of the state-of-the-art photo-optical instrumentation.
Abstract: Copyright 2003 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. DOI: 10.1117/12.458222 [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]
8 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a theoretical investigation of mechanisms by which ultraviolet circular polarisation may be produced in star formation regions, in which light scattering produces only a small percentage of net circular polarization at any point in space, due to the forward throwing nature of the phase function in the ultraviolet.
Abstract: Ultraviolet circularly polarised light has been suggested as the initial cause of the homochirality of organic molecules in terrestrial organisms, via enantiomeric selection of prebiotic molecules by asymmetric photolysis. We present a theoretical investigation of mechanisms by which ultraviolet circular polarisation may be produced in star formation regions. In the scenarios considered here, light scattering produces only a small percentage of net circular polarisation at any point in space, due to the forward throwing nature of the phase function in the ultraviolet. By contrast, dichroic extinction can produce a fairly high percentage of net circular polarisation (~10%) and may therefore play a key role in producing an enantiomeric excess.
6 citations