Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx)

WORKHORSE CAMERA

HWC Exposure Time Calculator

HabEx Workhorse Camera (HWC) design specifications

The HWC design, like the Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the HST, has two channels that can simultaneously observe the same field of view: an optical channel using delta-doped CCD detectors providing good throughput from 150 nm to 950 nm, and a near-IR channel using Hawaii-4RG HgCdTe arrays providing good throughput from 950 µm to 1.8 µm, at which point thermal backgrounds dominate over most celestial targets.

Both channels will have imaging and spectroscopic modes, and a MSA assembly provides for slit spectroscopy of targeted sources, significantly reducing the backgrounds and source confusion compared to the slit-less spectroscopic modes available on HST. The two modes of operation share the same optical path and cameras. In the spectrographic mode, the MSA and grism sets are introduced into the beam paths.