ULTRACAM - studying astrophysics on the fastest timescales

The history of observational astronomy has shown that major advances in the science almost always result when a new area of observational parameter space, such as wavelength coverage, angular resolution, sensitivity or sky coverage, becomes accessible for exploration. ULTRACAM is: an ultra-fast, triple-beam CCD camera which has been designed to study one of the few remaining unexplored regions of observational parameter space - high temporal resolution. The camera, which has recently been funded in full (pound 292 k) by PPARC, will see first light during the summer of 2001 and will be used on the 4.2 m WHT, 2.5 m INT, 2.0 m Liverpool Telescope. 3.9 m AAT, 9.1 m SALT and the 1.9 m SAAO Radcliffe Telescope to study astrophysics on the fastest timescales. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.