The beam observation system of the ISOLDE facility

During the reconstruction of the ISOLDE on‐line mass separator facility at CERN one of the goals was the development and implementation of an efficient and user friendly beam observation system. The pick‐up devices used on the two mass separators and the beam lines are mainly Faraday cups, wire scanners and wire grids. Most of these items were specifically designed at ISOLDE, in particular, a linearly moving wire scanner. The controls, data handling and display are all integrated in the PC based control system and can be accessed under Windows like any other element of the entire machine. The strong points of this measuring system as well as the limitations of beam observation in a low energy radioactive beam facility are discussed.