Astronomical Instruments

Near-infrared camera

NIRCam is the primary near-infrared imager of the James Webb Space Telescope and its wavefront-sensing instrument.

Mid-infrared instrument

MIRI, the Mid-Infrared Instrument on JWST, images and takes spectra of cool, dusty, and very distant objects.

Near-infrared spectrograph

NIRSpec is JWST's near-infrared spectrograph, able to record spectra of hundreds of objects at once.

Camera

Wide Field Camera 3 is Hubble's versatile camera, imaging from the ultraviolet to the near-infrared.

Camera

The Advanced Camera for Surveys is a wide-field Hubble camera that produced many of the telescope's deepest survey images.

Ultraviolet spectrograph

The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph studies the ultraviolet light of faint sources to probe the gas between galaxies.

Spectrograph

STIS is a versatile Hubble spectrograph used for everything from exoplanet atmospheres to black-hole masses.

Near-infrared imager and spectrograph

NIRISS, contributed by the Canadian Space Agency, provides JWST with slitless spectroscopy and high-contrast imaging.

Optical echelle spectrograph

HIRES on Keck I is a high-resolution optical spectrograph used in many exoplanet discoveries and studies of distant galaxies.

Optical integral-field spectrograph

MUSE on the VLT records a spectrum at every point in its field of view, mapping the motions and composition of galaxies.

Exoplanet imager

SPHERE on the VLT is an extreme adaptive-optics instrument that directly images exoplanets and circumstellar discs.