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J.A. Nousek, L.K. Townsley, P.S. Broos (Penn State), S.D. Horner (U.S. Naval Observatory), K.O. Mason, M.S. Cropper (Mullard Space Science Laboratory)
The UVOT provides the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer with the ability to rapidly detect and characterize the optical and ultraviolet properties of counterparts of gamma-ray bursts. Using a 30 cm modified Ritchie-Chretien telescope with sub-arc second imaging, the image intensified CCD readout provides a limiting sensitivity of 24th magnitude in a 1000 second integration in the white-light bandpass. A rotating filter wheel allows sensitive photometry in six bands spanning the UV and U, B, and V bands, which can provide photometric redshifts of objects in the range of z=1-5. For bright counterparts, such as the GRB990123 9th magnitude object or fainter objects down to 17th magnitude, two grisms provide low resolution spectroscopy.
This work is sponsored at Penn State by NASA's Office of Space Science through grant NAG5-8401, and at MSSL by funding from PPARC.
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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: mailto:nousek@astro.psu.edu