New detector

The science array for NOTCam was installed in October. Apart from the much better cosmetics compared to the engineering grade array mentioned in the previous report, we have since been able to check the efficiency of the science array in more detail. Overall it was found that the new array is 30% more sensitive than the engineering array ever was at its best ($\sim$June 2002) in J and H, while the quantum efficiency is about the same around 2 m$\mu$. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the engineering array seems to have decreased over the last few years. Lack of zero-point monitoring points (few and non-photometric NOTCam tech nights) makes it difficult to study when and how quickly it deteriorated, but we are currently looking into old NOTCam data from the archive. All in all, the new array gives about 0.6 magnitudes deeper zero-points in all bands than the engineering array provided in August 2005. Details on this can be found at

http://www.not.iac.es/instruments/notcam/sensitivity.html

Data has also been obtained to check the photometric scatter across the FOV for the YnJHKKs filter, but this still needs to be analyzed.

Thomas Augusteijn 2006-05-08