Calibration of the AXAF observatory: overview

The Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) will soon begin its exploration of the x-ray universe, providing unprecedented angular and spectral resolution. Also unprecedented is the ambitious goal of calibrating the AXAF observatory to an accuracy of a few percent. Toward this end, AXAF science and engineering teams undertook an extensive calibration program at component, subsystem, and system levels. This paper is an overview of the system-level calibration activities, conducted over the past year at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) X-Ray Calibration Facility (XRCF).

[1]  John E. Davis,et al.  Modeling the diffraction efficiencies of the AXAF high-energy transmission gratings , 1995, Optics & Photonics.

[2]  Stefan Kraft,et al.  High-accuracy calibration of the HXDS HPGe detector at the PTB radiometry laboratory at BESSY , 1997, Optics & Photonics.

[3]  John H. Chappell,et al.  Performance and calibration of the AXAF High-Resolution Camera I: imaging readout , 1997, Optics & Photonics.

[4]  Mark W. Bautz,et al.  Quantum efficiency calibration of AXAF CCDs from 2 to 10 keV , 1996, Optics & Photonics.

[5]  John H. Chappell,et al.  Absolute quantum efficiency calibration of the AXAF High-Resolution Camera , 1996, Optics & Photonics.

[6]  Patrick S. Broos,et al.  Transmission Maps of the ACIS UV/Optical Blocking Filter Flight Units , 1996 .

[7]  Kathryn A. Flanagan,et al.  Calibration and characterization of HETG grating elements at the MIT X-Ray Grating Evaluation Facility , 1995, Optics & Photonics.

[8]  Daniel Dewey,et al.  Laboratory calibration of x-ray transmission diffraction gratings , 1994, Optics & Photonics.

[9]  John H. Chappell,et al.  Performance and calibration of the AXAF High-Resolution Camera II: the spectroscopic detector , 1997, Optics & Photonics.

[10]  Herman L. Marshall,et al.  Preliminary test results on spectral resolution of the Low Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer on board of AXAF , 1997, Optics & Photonics.

[11]  John H. Chappell,et al.  Measurement of the transmission of the UV/ion shields for the AXAF High-Resolution Camera , 1996, Optics & Photonics.

[12]  Gregory Y. Prigozhin,et al.  Calibration of x-ray CCDs with an erect-field grating spectrometer in the 0.2- to 1.5-keV band , 1996, Optics & Photonics.

[13]  John P. Hughes,et al.  Ground Calibration of AXAF: The HRMA X-ray Detection System , 1995 .