Calibration And Image Processing Software For The Space Telescope Faint Object Camera

E. Golton. (1980), JBIS, 33, pp.357-360

Refcode: 1980.33.357

Abstract:

The Faint Object Camera (FOC) is one of five instruments complementing the Space Telescope (ST) to be launched by the space Shuttle in 1983, and is being provided by the European Space Agency. The camera will occupy one quadrant at the rear of the 2.4 m primary mirror, and will contain two separate optical units of different magnifications (f/48 and f/96), each with a separate detector. The basic fields of view for these two systems will be 22 and 11 arcsec respectively, although a variety of formats are planned. Each optical path contains several mask wheels holding a variety of filters and attenuators and other elements carefully chosen to obtain maximum benefit from the wide spectral range of the detectors, 120-700 nm approximately. The detectors are of the image photon counting type and approach ultimate sensitivity, being limited mainly by photocathode sensitivity and photon statistics.