We have developed a control electronics system for an infrared detector array of KASINICS (KASI Near Infrared Camera System), which is a new ground-based instrument of the Korea Astronomy and Space science Institute (KASI). Equipped with a 512×512 InSb array (ALADDIN III Quadrant, manufactured by Raytheon) sensitive from 1 to 5μm, KASINICS will be used at J, H, Ks, and L-bands. The controller consists of DSP(Digital Signal Processor), Bias, Clock, and Video boards which are installed on a single VME-bus backplane. TMS320C6713DSP, FPGA(Field Programmable Gate Array), and 384-MB SDRAM(Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) are included in the DSP board. DSP board manages entire electronics system, generates digital clock patterns and communicates with a PC using USB 2.0 interface. The clock patterns are downloaded from a PC and stored on the FPGA. UART is used for the communication with peripherals. Video board has 4 channel ADC which converts video signal into 16-bit digital numbers. Two video boards are installed on the controller for ALADDIN array. The Bias board provides 16 dc bias voltages and the Clock board has 15 clock channels. We have also coded a DSP firmware and a test version of control software in C-language. The controller is flexible enough to operate a wide range of IR array and CCD. Operational tests of the controller have been successfully finished using a test ROIC (Read-Out Integrated Circuit).

The KASINICS (KASI Near Infrared Camera System) is a ground-based Near-Infrared (NIR) imaging instrument developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). In this paper, we report the test results of the KASINICS camera optics system which is comprised of a 1-1 Offner relay. We measure that the surface RMS fluctuations of the Offner mirrors are at the level of 10−1−10−2 of the target wavelengths, showing that the mirrors are sufficiently smooth for NIR observations. The alignment of the Offner optics system has been checked too. Our ray-tracing simulations find that the image quality should not degrade more than the pixel size of the KASINICS ( 40μm), if a de-centering or a tilt of the Offner mirrors are within 5mm, or 2.5° . Our measurement shows that the de-centering or the tilt of the Offner mirrors are less than 1 mm or 0.5° , assuring that the KASINICS image quality are not affected by the alignment errors. We have also measured that the optics resolution is 20μm and it does not degrade more than 10% over the detector surface area of 14.3 mm / times 14.3mm. Overall, we conclude that the KASINICS optics system satisfies the design requirements for NIR imaging observations.

KASI (Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute) is developing the near-infrared camera system named KASINICS (KASI Near-Infrared Camera System) which will be installed at the 60cm f/13.5 Ritchey-Chretien telescope of the Sobaeksan Optical Astronomy Observatory (SOAO). The camera system is optimized for JHKL bands and has a 6 arcmin FOV. The optical system consists of two spherical mirrors and a 8-position filter wheel. With the exception for the dewar window, all optical elements are cooled inside cryogenic dewar. Since the Offner system is adopted to prevent thermal noises from outside of the telescope primary mirror, the secondary mirror of the Offner system acts as a cold Lyot stop. The optical performance does not change by temperature variations because the Aluminum mirrors contract and expand homogeneously with its mount. We finished the design and fabrication of the optical parts and are now aligning the optical system. We plan to have a test observation on 2006 January.