X-ray imaging with the XSPECT/SODART microstrip proportional counters

The Danish Space Research Institute will provide a set of four imaging microstrip proportional counters (MSPC) as part of XSPECT, the Danish contribution to the SODART telescopes. A high- and a low-energy detector (HEPC and LEPC) will be provided for each of the SODART telescopes. The design is fixed and a prototype of LEPC is under construction. The present paper describes the imaging properties of this detector. The inherent position resolution is < 0.2 mm around 6 keV, and positional nonlinearities are < 0.1 mm. The gas gain is independent of position to better than 0.5%. Finally, the point spread function, important for studying weak objects in the vicinity of strong ones, has been measured.