PANIC: A General-purpose Panoramic Near-infrared Camera for the Calar Alto Observatory

PANIC(7) is the new PAnoramic Near-Infrared Camera for Calar Alto and is a project jointly developed by the MPIA in Heidelberg, Germany, and the IAA in Granada, Spain, for the German-Spanish Astronomical Center at Calar Alto Observatory (CAHA; Almeria, Spain). This new instrument works with the 2.2 m and 3.5 m CAHA telescopes covering a field of view of 30 x 30 arcmin and 15 x 15 arcmin, respectively, with a sampling of 4096 x 4096 pixels. It is designed for the spectral bands from Z to K-S, and can also be equipped with narrowband filters. The instrument was delivered to the observatory in 2014 October and was commissioned at both telescopes between 2014 November and 2015 June. Science verification at the 2.2 m telescope was carried out during the second semester of 2015 and the instrument is now at full operation. We describe the design, assembly, integration, and verification process, the final laboratory tests and the PANIC instrument performance. We also present first-light data obtained during the commissioning and preliminary results of the scientific verification. The final optical model and the theoretical performance of the camera were updated according to the as-built data. The laboratory tests were made with a star simulator. Finally, the commissioning phase was done at both telescopes to validate the camera real performance on sky. The final laboratory test confirmed the expected camera performances, complying with the scientific requirements. The commissioning phase on sky has been accomplished.