The Dark Energy Camera (DECam)

We describe the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which will be the primary instrument used in the Dark Energy Survey. DECam will be a 3 sq. deg. mosaic camera mounted at the prime focus of the Blanco 4m telescope at the Cerro-Tololo International Observatory (CTIO). DECam includes a large mosaic CCD focal plane, a five element optical corrector, five filters (g,r,i,z,Y), and the associated infrastructure for operation in the prime focus cage. The focal plane consists of 62 2K x 4K CCD modules (0.27"/pixel) arranged in a hexagon inscribed within the roughly 2.2 degree diameter field of view. The CCDs will be 250 micron thick fully-depleted CCDs that have been developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Production of the CCDs and fabrication of the optics, mechanical structure, mechanisms, and control system for DECam are underway; delivery of the instrument to CTIO is scheduled for 2010.