The Advanced Camera for Surveys

Abstract

The Advanced Camera for Surveys is a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) third generation instrument that includes three cameras: the Wide Field Camera (WFC), the High Resolution Camera (HRC), and the Solar Blind Channel (SBC). The camera of choice for most imaging programs is expected to be the WFC, as the Cycle 11 round of HST proposals has shown. WFC is a wide field ( 3.4'×3.4'), high throughput camera (45% at 7000 Å), covering the spectral range 3700-11000 Å. It has a 0.05 arcsec/pixel scale, which half critically samples the HST point spread function at 5000 Å. A large part of the 500 orbits included in the ACS GTO program will be used to observe massive galaxy clusters at 0.2 < z < 1.25. Our science goals include mapping the cluster dark matter distribution, studying the evolution of cluster galaxies and the detection and identification of galaxies at z ∼ 6. The capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope for the study of the distant Universe will be increased by an order of magnitude after the successful installation of the Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002 March. ACS will have an immediate high impact on many areas of astrophysics, but will also leave a long-lasting scientific legacy, providing targets for telescopes such as the GTC for many years to come.