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ULTRACAM is a portable, high-speed imaging photometer designed to study faint astronomical objects at high temporal resolutions. ULTRACAM employs two dichroic beamsplitters and three frame-transfer CCD cameras to provide three-colour optical imaging at frame rates of up to 500 Hz. The instrument has been mounted on the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma, the 8.2-m Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal, and the 3.5-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) on La Silla, where it has been permanently mounted since 2019. ULTRACAM has been used to study white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, pulsars, black hole/neutron star X-ray binaries, gamma-ray bursts, cataclysmic variables, eclipsing binary stars, extrasolar planets, flare stars, ultracompact binaries, active galactic nuclei, asteroseismology and occultations by Solar System objects (Titan, Pluto and Kuiper Belt objects). ULTRACAM was funded by PPARC/STFC and built by a collaboration involving the Universities of Sheffield, Warwick and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Edinburgh. Some selected ULTRACAM papers, press releases and news items are listed below: Press releases and news items: 15/11/2023 - "Sheffield astronomers help discover signs of life in a star's explosive death" - Sheffield press release, Nature news, Cornell press release 27/10/2023 - "Sheffield astronomers help to confirm heaviest elements in the Universe are formed in kilonovae" - Sheffield press release, Warwick press release, Radboud press release 15/06/2023 - "Discovery of white dwarf pulsar sheds light on star evolution" - Warwick press release 05/05/2022 - "Astronomers discover a rare 'black widow' binary star, with the shortest orbit ever identified" - Sheffield press release, MIT press release 07/12/2017 - "Black holes' magnetism surprisingly wimpy" - University of Florida press release, Astronomy magazine 30/10/2017 - "Scientists penetrate mystery of raging black hole beams" - Southampton press release, artist's impression, data animation, artist's animation, Sheffield press release, HEAPOW, Front Cover of Nature Astronomy, Dec 2017, News & Views in Nature Astronomy 27/07/2016 - "White Dwarf Lashes Red Dwarf with Mystery Ray" - ESO press release, artist's impression, animation, ESA Hubble Space Telescope, Warwick press release, EarthSky 16/03/2016 - "Astronomers see black hole raging red" - RAS press release, ING press release, Southampton press release, Astronomy Now, Independent, Metro, Science Daily 18/02/2015 - "The Strange Case of the Missing Dwarf" - ESO press release, CNET 17/02/2015 - "Dust to dust: a disintegrating rocky exoplanet could unlock secrets to how our solar system was formed" - Press release 14/12/2014 - "One of most accurate measurements of the size of a Trans-Neptunian Object from a stellar occultation" - Press release, video 27/06/2013 - "Survivor of stellar collision is new type of pulsating star" - Press release, sound clip and visualisations 25/04/2013 - "Einstein Was Right - So Far" - ESO press release, Sky and Telescope article 12/04/2013 - "RAS Specialist Discussion Meeting on High Time-Resolution Optical Astrophysics" - meeting to celebrate the tenth anniversary of first light with ULTRACAM 11/01/2013 - "Jackson-Gwilt Medal awarded by Royal Astronomical Society for ULTRACAM" - Press releases: RAS, STFC, ING, Sheffield, The Times 21/11/2012 - "Dwarf planet Makemake examined for the first time" - ESO press release, BBC news, Daily Mail, Astronomy Picture of the Day, link to various movies 09/10/2010 - "Planetary system discovered around double star" - Sheffield and Warwick press releases, BBC news, SPACE.com, Astronomy magazine, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Metro 13/05/2009 - "High-speed astrophysics with ULTRACAM/ULTRASPEC" - Jodcast 15/10/2008 - "VLT and Rossi XTE satellite probe violently variable black holes" - ESO and RIKEN press releases 15/10/2008 - "Two black holes teach astronomers a lesson" - NASA web feature 07/02/2007 - First Observational Evidence of a Dead Cataclysmic Variable - ING scientific highlight 01/05/2007 - "Astronomers Unearth a Cataclysmic Corpse" - Sky & Telescope article 07/12/2006 - "Cataclysmic Cannibals in the Sky" - Science press release 01/09/2005 - Observing with the New High-Speed Camera ULTRACAM on Melipal - ESO Messenger article 09/06/2005 - "Ultra-fast Movies of the Sky" - ESO press release 09/06/2005 - "Astronomy in the fast lane " - PPARC/ROE press release 09/02/2004 - "New instruments give UK astronomers control of time domain" - RAS press release, video, slides 28/10/2002 - "ULTRACAM successfully commissioned on the WHT" - ING bulletin article (pdf), (html) 14/08/2002 - "New Telescope Camera Targets Fast-Spinning Hearts of Distant Galaxies" - SPACE.com article 25/07/2002 - "100 Photographs in the Blink of an Eye" - PPARC press release Selection of ULTRACAM publications: 09/10/2024 - "Quasi-periodic X-ray eruptions years after a nearby tidal disruption event" - Nature paper 15/11/2023 - "Minutes-duration optical flares with supernova luminosities" - Nature paper 25/10/2023 - "Heavy element production in a compact object merger observed by JWST" - Nature paper 15/06/2023 - "A 5.3-min-period pulsing white dwarf in a binary detected from radio to X-rays" - Nature Astronomy paper 04/05/2022 - "A 62-minute orbital period black widow binary in a wide hierarchical triple" - Nature paper 08/12/2017 - "A precise measurement of the magnetic field in the corona of the black hole binary V404 Cygni" - Science paper 30/10/2017 - "An elevation of 0.1 light-seconds for the optical jet base in an accreting Galactic black hole system" - Nature Astronomy paper 27/07/2016 - "A radio-pulsing white dwarf binary star" - Nature paper 16/03/2016 - "Furiously Fast and Red: Sub-second Optical Flaring in V404 Cyg during the 2015 Outburst Peak" - MNRAS paper 18/02/2016 - Full list of ULTRACAM publications 09/10/2015 - "Accretion-induced variability links young stellar objects, white dwarfs, and black holes" - Science Advances paper 27/06/2013 - "Multi-periodic pulsations of a stripped red-giant star in an eclipsing binary system" - Nature paper 26/04/2013 - "A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Binary" - Science paper 21/11/2012 - "Albedo and atmospheric constraints of dwarf planet Makemake from a stellar occultation" - Nature paper 01/10/2010 - "Two planets orbiting the recently formed post-common envelope binary NN Serpentis" - A&A paper 01/07/2007 - "ULTRACAM: an ultrafast, triple-beam CCD camera for high-speed astrophysics" - MNRAS paper 01/12/2006 - "A Brown Dwarf Mass Donor in an Accreting Binary" - Science paper and Science Perspectives 30/10/2002 - "The Ultracam camera control and data acquisition system" - SPIE paper |