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Session 73 - Solar Space Observations, SOHO & SERTS.
Display session, Friday, January 09
Exhibit Hall,
The Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics at Goddard Space Flight Center uses a variety imaging sensors for its instrumentation programs. This paper describes the detector system for SERTS.
The SERTS rocket telescope uses an open faceplate, single plate MCP tube as the primary detector for EUV spectra from the Sun. The optical output of this detector is fiber-optically coupled to a cooled, large format CCD.
This CCD is operated using a software controlled Camera controller based upon a design used for the SOHO/CDS mission. This camera is a general purpose design, with a topology that supports multiple types of imaging devices. Multiport devices (up to 4 ports) and multiphase clocks are supportable as well as variable speed operation. Clock speeds from 100KHz to 1MHz have been used, and the topology is currently being extended to support 10MHz operation. The form factor for the camera system is based on the popular VME buss.
Because the tube is an open faceplate design, the detector system has an assortment of vacuum doors and plumbing to allow operation in vacuum but provide for safe storage at normal atmosphere. Vac-ion pumps are used to maintain working vacuum at all times. Marshall Space Flight Center provided the SERTS programs with HVPS units for both the vac-ion pumps and the MCP tube. The MCP tube HVPS is a direct derivative of the design used for the SXI mission for NOAA.
Auxiliary equipment includes a frame buffer that works either as a multi-frame storage unit or as a photon counting accumulation unit. This unit also performs interface buffering so that the camera may appear as a piece of GPIB instrumentation.
