At the heart of WINTER is the development of InGaAs detectors as a cheaper alternative for near-infrared astronomy. WINTER combines six commercial, wide-format InGaAs detectors to cover one square degree on the sky between 0.9 and 1.7 microns. InGaAs detectors are a cost-effective way to build infrared instruments without cryogenic cooling and still achieve sky-background limited performance. I led the detector operations and testing for WINTER.  

In order to cover over a square degree on the sky with six sensors, WINTER's novel fly's-eye design splits up the optical path into six channels. This requires custom optics and mounting hardware. I contributed to the optical design and intrument alignment, which you can learn more about in Lourie et al 2020. 

We read out each WINTER sensor at 7 frames per second, with a planned upgrade to 30 frames per second. By saving many data points during each image (non-destructive read) we can improve the image quality and reduce read noise. Fast reads require custom electronics, firmware, and software. I tested our custom electronics, wrote all the firmware to control the electronics and detectors with FPGAs, and wrote custom readout software which includes GPUs for real-time data processing. You can learn more about the readout in Frostig et al. 2022.  

WINTER lives on a dedicated 1-meter robotic telescope at Palomar Observatory. The project runs autonomously each night without supervision. I wrote the scheduling software such that each night WINTER decides which images to take based on historic data, scheduling constraints, and balancing scientific priorities.