8-megapixel thermoelectrically cooled CCD imaging system

We are developing an astronomical imaging system which employs a thermoelectrically cooled focal plane consisting of two 'edge-buttable' Loral 2048 X 2048 pixel CCDs. To allow strip scanning, the columns of the CCDs are mutually aligned on a custom Kovar mount. The clocking and bias voltage levels for each CCD are independently adjustable, but both CCDs are operated synchronously. Each chip is read out from one output and measured at 14 bits with commercially available A/D converters at a rate of 250 kpixels/s, permitting scanning across the sky at up to 1000 deg²/hr (about twenty times faster than the equatorial sidereal rate) to a limiting magnitude (S/N equals 3) near V equals 19. The instrument will be used as part of the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) using a 57-cm Schmidt telescope at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.