STIS CCD Performance: Darks, Hot Pixels, and Anneals

Session 18 - STIS.
Display session, Wednesday, January 07
Exhibit Hall,

[18.13] STIS CCD Performance: Darks, Hot Pixels, and Anneals

J. J. E. Hayes, P. Goudfrooij, J. A. Christensen (STScI), R. A. Kimble, E. Malumuth (NASA/GSFC), T. L. Beck (ACC)

A comprehensive monitoring program has been underway for the STIS CCD detector since STIS was installed on HST (Feb 97). This program consists of monitors of darks, biases, the growth of hot pixels, and the affect that annealing has on the elimination of these hot pixels. During SMOV, it was found that approximately 80e annealed out, but that the creation rate of new hot pixels remains about as high as the anneal process removes hot pixels. While we have found that the darks are reasonably stable we have also observed that the CCD bias seems to show a change in level and morphology over time. We will discuss the implications of these findings for the future science program.

Program listing for Wednesday