ASZCa

The APEX SZ Camera (ASZCa) was mounted on the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope on the Chajnantor plateau in Chile’s Atacama region in 2007.

The ASZCa housed a 330 element Transition-Edge Sensor (TES) bolometer array, designed to survey for galaxy clusters via the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect at millimetre wavelengths using the APEX telescope.

The spectral band of ASZCa was centred at 2 mm (150 GHz) and was mounted at the Cassegrain focus of the telescope. The array consisted of six wedges, each with 55 150 GHz pixels. The array was fabricated in the Berkeley Microlab cleanroom facility. Each bolometer had a 3 mm diameter gold spiderweb absorber.

ASZCa was used by the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy before being decommissioned in December 2010.

ASZCa on APEX This table lists the global capabilities of the instrument. Location: Decommissioned Telescope: APEX Focus: Cassegrain Type: Receiver Wavelength coverage: Submillimetre, 2 mm Spatial resolution:   Spectral resolution:   First light date: April 2007 Science goals:   Images taken with the instrument: N/A Images of the instrument: N/A Press Releases with the instrument: N/A Data papers: (Includes ESO and non-ESO papers) Link Consortium: ESO Berkeley Microlab