High-speed astrophysics with ULTRACAM

ULTRACAM是一款数码相机，每秒可以拍摄（并存储）多达500张红、绿、蓝图像。该仪器由谢菲尔德大学、华威大学和爱丁堡的英国天文技术中心组成的一个财团在不到3年的时间里建造完成，使用了PPARC提供的30万英镑资助。ULTRACAM于2002年5月16日在拉帕尔马的4.2米威廉赫歇尔望远镜（WHT）上看到了“第一缕光”，并于2005年5月4日在智利的8.2米甚大望远镜（VLT）上看到了第一缕光。后者是目前世界上最大的望远镜，ULTRACAM成为第一个使用其新“访客焦点”的仪器，也是第一个安装在VLT上的英国制造的仪器（在任何焦点上）。迄今为止，ULTRACAM已经在WHT上获得了87个夜晚，在VLT上获得了23个夜晚，用于天体物理学的许多不同领域的项目，包括研究白矮星、棕矮星、红矮星、脉冲星、黑洞/中子星x射线双星、伽马射线暴、灾难性变量、食双星、系外行星、活动星系核和太阳系天体（泰坦、冥王星和柯伊伯带天体）的掩星。由于ULTRACAM是一种私人仪器，谢菲尔德的ULTRACAM团队负责仪器的安装和拆卸以及使用它进行观察。这意味着在过去的4年里，ULTRACAM团队不得不在WHT和VLT度过大约200个夜晚。Dhillon （ULTRACAM PI）发现越来越难以满足对ULTRACAM时间的需求，并将其与充分利用已获得/将获得的独特科学数据集所需的时间相平衡，以及保持仪器在其领域前沿所需的持续维护和增强。因此，该基金要求资助Dhillon在未来3年内将所有时间投入到ULTRACAM项目中。该基金还要求继续为谢菲尔德大学ULTRACAM PDRA的Littlefair提供资金，他现在是一个训练有素的宝贵成员，领导着两个主要的ULTRACAM研究项目。

ULTRACAM is a digital camera capable of taking (and storing) up to 500 red, green and blue images per second. The instrument was built in just under 3 years by a consortium from the Universities of Sheffield, Warwick and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre in Edinburgh, using a £300,000 grant awarded by PPARC. ULTRACAM saw 'first light' on 16 May 2002 on the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma, and first light on the 8.2-m Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile on 4 May 2005. This latter telescope is currently the world's largest and ULTRACAM became both the first instrument to make use of its new 'Visitor Focus' and the first UK-built instrument to be mounted (at any focus) on the VLT. To date, ULTRACAM has been awarded a total of 87 nights on the WHT and 23 nights on the VLT for projects in many different areas of astrophysics, including the study of white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, red dwarfs, pulsars, black-hole/neutron-star X-ray binaries, gamma-ray bursts, cataclysmic variables, eclipsing binary stars, extrasolar planets, active galactic nuclei and occultations by Solar System objects (Titan, Pluto and Kuiper Belt objects). Since ULTRACAM is a private instrument, the ULTRACAM team at Sheffield are responsible for the installation and removal of the instrument as well as for the observations with it. This means that the ULTRACAM team have had to spend approximately 200 nights at the WHT and VLT over the past 4 years. Dhillon (the ULTRACAM PI) has been finding it increasingly difficult to meet this demand for time on ULTRACAM and balance it against the time required to fully exploit the unique scientific datasets which have been/will be obtained and the continued maintenance and enhancements required to keep the instrument at the forefront of its field. This grant therefore requests funding to enable Dhillon to devote all of his time to the ULTRACAM project for the next 3 years. The grant also requests continued funding for Littlefair, the ULTRACAM PDRA at Sheffield, who is now a fully-trained, invaluable member of the team who is leading two major ULTRACAM research projects.