The Workshop "Optical Detectors for Astronomy" was held during October 8-10, 1996 at the headquarters of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany. This was the third meeting of its kind, previous meetings being held in 1991 and 1993, but this is the first ESO "CCD Workshop" that has published proceedings. Most of the leading manufacturers and major astronomical observatories were represented, with the 117 attendees coming together from 14 different countries that spanned every continent on Earth. The motivation for the ESO CCD Workshop series is the creation of informal and open venue of information exchange about astronomical CCD detectors and systems. Judging from the reaction and feedback of the participants, the 1996 workshop was as successful as the previous editions, which is a credit to all who attended. The Workshop was organized as a mixture of invited talks, oral presentations, poster sessions and roundtable discussions, the latter used to foster a free exchange of ideas among participants. These technical sessions were complemented by an opening reception and a congenial evening in downtown Munich, which included a walking tour of the historic area followed by dinner at the famous Franziskaner brewery and an after dinner talk by Walter Kosonocky, who reviewed the history of CCD technology.

InhaltsangabeForeword. Section I: Manufacturers. Products and R&D Efforts. Large Area, Buttable Image Sensors for Mosaic Applications; M.M. Blouke, et al. The State of CCD Technology at Lockheed Martin Fairchild Systems; R. Bredthauer/J.W. Beletic, P. Amico. Large-Area Back-Illuminated CCD Imager Development; B.E. Burke, et al. CCDs for Astronomy; P.J. Pool, et al. Philips Imaging Technology and the mK×nK Image Sensor; A.J.P. Theuwissen/J.W. Beletic, P. Amico. Section II: Observatory Plans. CFHT - Wide Field Imaging and `CCD-World' Host; T.M.C. Abbott. The Astronomical CCD Development Program at Copenhagen University; J. Andersen. Future Instrumentation for the Nordic Optical Telescope; C. Aspin. ESO's Plan for Optical Detectors; J.W> Beletic. AAO Detectors - Present Status and Future Plans; R. Cannon, J. Barton. A Drift Scan Camera for Astrometry; M. Gai, et al. RGO (and ING) CCDs - Current Development; P.R. Jorden, A.P. Oates. CCD Development at the University of Hawaii; G.A. Luppino. High Precision Shutter for the T.N.G. CCD Camera; F. Pedichini, et al. Fabrication of Thinned CCDs at UCO/Lick Observatory; R.J. Stover, et al. Section III: CCD Devices, Controllers, Instruments and Testbenches. ESO's New CCD Testbench; P. Amico, T. Böhm. FIERA: ESO's New Generation CCD Controller; J.W. Beletic, et al. The Architecture for Two Generations of ESO VLT CCD Controllers; C. Cumani, R. Donaldson. Crymac - Cryostat Maintenance Controller; R.J. Dorn. Some Experiments with Simple Preamplifier Designs; J.C. Geary. PULPO: Temperature, Vacuum, Shutter, LN2 Level, All in One Box; N. Haddad, P. Sinclaire. Very-high Frame-rate Burst-image Sensor;W.F. Kosonocky, et al. High Speed, Wide Dynamic Range CCD Systems for Applications in Astronomy; C.D. Mackay. Recent Results from the EEV CCD42; A.P. Oates, P.R. Jorden. The AIP Photometric Testbench; M.M. Roth. High-Speed Data Acquisition System Messia for Subaru; M. Sekuguchi, et al. Readout Speed Optimization for Conventional CCDs Employing Dual Slope Integration for Double Correlated Sampling; R.M. Smith. Section IV: Mosaic Projects, Special Techniques. An Interferometric Method for Measurement of the Detector MTF; M.I. Andersen, A.N. Sørensen. The Two EROS 4k x 8k CCD Mosaic Cameras; F. Bauer, J. de Kat. Wide Field Imaging at CFHT: the MEGACAM Project; O. Boulade. Fringing &endash; A User's Perspective; R. Cannon. DEIMOS Dewar System; D. Cowley. High Precision Photometry from Space with COROT: Effect of Spatial Image Jitter on the Photometric Performances of CCDs; R. Gruneisen. Charge Transfer Efficiency in Proton Damaged CCDs; T. Hardy, et al. Low Smear Drift Scanning CCDs; D. Ives, A. Bennett. Parallel Phase Test; R. Kohley, et al. Converting a Schmidt Telescope to CCDs: the OCA/DLR Asteroid Survey; A. Maury, et al. On the Optimization of CCD Readout Noise; R.E. Schmidt. How Linear Are Typical CCDs? R.M. Smith. Application of the Arcon CCD Controller to the NOAO 8k Mosaic Imager; R.M. Smith. Cleaning Contaminated CCDs; A.N. Sørensen. CCD Flatness Measuring System at UCO/Lick Observatory; R.J. Stover, et al. The Orthogonal Transfer CCE; J. Tonry, B.E. Burke. A Technique for the Determination of Co-planarity in Mosaic CCD Cameras; S. Tulloch, D. King. CCD Camera Calibration and Testing Using Compact LED Light Sources; S. Tull