Upgraded MOIRCS instrument achieves better images
MOIRCS, the Multi-Object Infrared Camera and Spectrograph for the Subaru Telescope, has undergone a significant upgrade during 2015. Members of the project team were delighted to achieve first light (the term for the first time an instrument sees starlight), on the night after Christmas of 2015. The upgraded MOIRCS with new detectors, a new temperature control system, and new instrument control system software, demonstrated its good performance on the night of December 26, 2015, with an infrared image of the spiral galaxy NGC 3521 (Figure 1). The distance is 26 million light years, toward the constellation Leo. MOIRCS's FOV is large enough as for the near infrared instrument, to have this galaxy in 7 arcminute in the angular size in one view.