CAMERA OF THE INFRARED SPACE-OBSERVATORY

The Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) camera (ISOCAM) is designed to map selected regions of the sky in the spectral region from 2.5 to 17 mum at various spatial and spectral resolutions and at high sensitivity ( at >4 mum, <1 mJy/10 s in 200 s). It will make images, within the 3-arcmin field of view of the ISO telescope, with two 32 x 32 IR array detectors: an InSb charge injection device (CID) for the 2.5- to 5.5-mum range and a Si:Ga direct voltage readout for the 4- to 17-mum range. Four different pixel fields of view are available on each channel: 1.5, 3, 6, and 12 arcsec. The spectral range can be selected in each channel by a set of about 10 fixed bandpass filters (resolution from 2 to 100) and continuous variable filters (resolution -45); polarization measurements are possible as well. A very wide range of astrophysical problems can be tackled with ISOCAM. We present a brief description of the program planned by the ISOCAM team.