AAS Meeting #193 - Austin, Texas, January 1999
Session 80. X-Ray Astronomy with Astro-E
Special, Oral, Friday, January 8, 1999, 10:00-11:30am, Ballroom B

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[80.05] X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS) on board Astro-E

H. Tsunemi (Osaka University), K. Koyama (Kyoto Uuniversity), T. Dotani (ISAS), G. R. Ricker (MIT), XIS Team

We report the performance of the XIS on-board the Astro-E satellite to be launched in February, 2000. The XIS is a collaboration of Osaka university, Kyoto university, ISAS Japan and MIT. The XIS consists of four identical X-ray CCD cameras. Each camera contains one CCD chip produced in Lincoln laboratory, MIT. The CCD chip is identical to the front-illuminated detectors used in AXAF ACIS. Each camera has its own thin foil type X-ray mirror co-aligned with the XRS. The Field of view is 19'x19'.

The XIS is designed based on the experience of the ASCA SIS, the previous Japanese X-ray astronomy satellite. The working temperature is about -90C, about 30C lower than that in the ASCA SIS. The camera system, including the optical blocking filter, is redesigned to improve the possible light leakage. The fixed calibration source, 55Fe, is introduced in each camera to enable us to measure the CTI as well as to show the absolute energy scale. The effective field of view of the XIS is almost equal to that of the ASCA SIS with no gaps. The event pattern recognition algorithm is also improved with increase the capability of the CPU.

In the meeting, we will report the expected performance of the XIS based on the calibration data.


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