CFHT Wide-Field Infrared Surveys

A call for ideas

The CFHT is developing a wide field near infrared camera, WIRCAM, in collaboration with institutes in the three communities as well as in Korea and Taiwan. The instrument will be sensitive between 0.8 and 2.5 microns, and provide a total field-of-view of 20 x 20 arcminutes with an image scale of 0.3"/pixel. z, J, H, K filters will be available, as well as a limited selection of narrow-band filters (http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/News/Projects/WIRCam/New). Following upon its highly successful CFH12K and soon to be commissioned MegaPrime optical cameras, WIRCAM will give CFHT continuous wide-field imaging capabilities from below 4000 Angstrom to beyond 2.5 microns. Both MegaPrime and WIRCAM are tip-tilt corrected, and will provide excellent image quality. The scientific impact of WIRCAM will range from the nearest and faintest objects in the solar neighbourhood to the most distant quasars at z = 7.

In the MegaPrime era Canada and France have decided to join most of their dark and grey telescope time for a large and challenging project, the CFHT Legacy Survey (CFHTLS). Detailed information on this survey can be found on the CFHT web site at http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/Science/CFHLS/.

The CFHT SAC is currently considering whether a similarly ambitious project should use WIRCAM for a significant amount of the CFHT bright time, starting by mid-2004. The SAC therefore invites brief proposals of ideas for wide field infrared surveys with WIRCAM from all CFH communities and the collaborative institutes (the Korea Astronomical Observatory in Korea and the CosPA institutes in Taiwan). These may be from individuals or groups. Responders should submit to the CFHT director (wircamsurvey@cfht.hawaii.edu), by November 7th 2002, a description in up to 2 pages of the survey idea and its database requirements.

These ideas will be reviewed by the WIRCAM Steering Group. This Steering Group was appointed by CFHT, with advice from SAC, to supervise the development of the camera and prepare a WIRCAM survey. It will then propose strategies for a core suite of survey programs, taking into account survey programs planned or under way at CFHT and elsewhere (UKIDSS and others). The discussions will also consider observing date windows, and the optimum way to complete programs over 5 years or less. As CFHT and SAC may decide to modify the membership of the WIRCAM Steering Group to include other people motivated in participating to the survey definition and realization, please indicate in your response to the call for idea whether you are willing to/interested in serving on the WIRCAM Steering group.

The WIRCAM Steering Group,
R. Abraham, J.-L. Beuzit, J. Bouvier, M. Y. Chun, T. Davidge, T. Forveille, J.-F. Le Borgne, E. Martin, H. Yee