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R. A. Simcoe, M. R. Metzger (Department of Astronomy, Caltech), T. A. Small (Space Astrophysics, Caltech), G. Araya (Araya Machining)
October 1999 marked first light for the LFC, a newly-completed CCD mosaic that operates on the 5m Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. At prime focus, the LFC delivers a well-sampled 24.6 arcminute diameter field, which is imaged by an array of six 2048x4096 pixel back-side illuminated SITe CCDs with good UV performance. In addition to the six science detectors, the focal plane mosaic includes two 512x512 pixel CCDs near the corners of the field. One provides a detector for an integral guider, and the other is tilted with respect to the focal plane to allow continuous monitoring of the telescope focus. The LFC also incorporates an integral filter wheel holding four 155 mm square filters and a fast custom shutter that provides uniform field illumination. First light exposures from the LFC achieved 0.76 arcsec FWHM images over the field of the camera. Current scientific projects using the LFC include deep surveys for high-redshift galaxies, studies of weak gravitational lensing, surveys of high-redshift optically-selected galaxy clusters, and optical imaging of target fields for the GALEX UV survey satellite.