Observational artifacts of Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array: ghost rays and stray light

Kristin K. Madsen; Finn E. Christensen; William W. Craig; Karl W. Forster; Brian W. Grefenstette; Fiona A. Harrison; Hiromasa Miyasaka; Vikram Rana

doi:10.1117/1.JATIS.3.4.044003

27 October 2017 Observational artifacts of Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array: ghost rays and stray light

Kristin K. Madsen, Finn E. Christensen, William W. Craig, Karl W. Forster, Brian W. Grefenstette, Fiona A. Harrison, Hiromasa Miyasaka, Vikram Rana

Author Affiliations +

Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems, Vol. 3, Issue 4, 044003 (October 2017). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.3.4.044003

Abstract

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) launched in June 2012, flies two conical approximation Wolter-I mirrors at the end of a 10.15-m mast. The optics are coated with multilayers of Pt/C and W/Si that operate from 3 to 80 keV. Since the optical path is not shrouded, aperture stops are used to limit the field of view (FoV) from background and sources outside the FoV. However, there is still a sliver of sky ( ∼1.0 deg to 4.0 deg) where photons may bypass the optics altogether and fall directly on the detector array. We term these photons stray light. Additionally, there are also photons that do not undergo the focused double reflections in the optics, and we term these ghost rays. We present detailed analysis and characterization of these two components and discuss how they impact observations. Finally, we discuss how they could have been prevented and should be in future observatories.

CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

Citation Download Citation

Kristin K. Madsen, Finn E. Christensen, William W. Craig, Karl W. Forster, Brian W. Grefenstette, Fiona A. Harrison, Hiromasa Miyasaka, and Vikram Rana "Observational artifacts of Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array: ghost rays and stray light," Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 3(4), 044003 (27 October 2017). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.3.4.044003

Received: 27 June 2017; Accepted: 3 October 2017; Published: 27 October 2017

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

JOURNAL ARTICLE
13 PAGES

DOWNLOAD PAPER SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

GET CITATION

CITATIONS

Cited by 35 scholarly publications.

Explore citations on Lens.org

KEYWORDS

Photons

Sensors

Mirrors

Telescopes

Space telescopes

Reflection

Spectroscopes

Show All Keywords

RELATED CONTENT

Reducing the optical and x ray stray light In the...
Proceedings of SPIE (April 03 2018)

Development of supermirror hard x ray telescope and the results...
Proceedings of SPIE (March 11 2003)

X-ray multi-mirror (XMM) telescope
Proceedings of SPIE (November 11 1994)

X-ray telescopes for the ESA XMM spacecraft
Proceedings of SPIE (November 19 1998)

Stray light shielding for formation flying x-ray telescopes
Proceedings of SPIE (September 08 2005)

Simbol-X: x-ray baffle for stray-light reduction
Proceedings of SPIE (September 20 2007)

Design of gamma-ray optics for nuclear astrophysics
Proceedings of SPIE (October 11 2004)

Subscribe to Digital Library

Receive Erratum Email Alert

Show All Keywords

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years