Calibration and Performance of the Photon-counting Detectors for the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) of the Astrosat Observatory11Astrosat is an observatory project of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), with partnership by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Abstract

ABSTRACTWe describe calibration data and discuss performance of the photon-counting flight detectors for the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescopes on the Astrosat observatory. This article describes dark current, flat-field, and light-spot images for FUV, NUV, and visible band detectors at more than one wavelength setting for each. We also report on nominal-gain and low-gain operations, full- and subwindow read rates, and non-photon-counting modes of operation, all expected to be used in flight. We derive corrections to the event centroids from the CMOS readout arrays, for different centroid algorithms. We derive spatial resolution values for each detector and plots of point-source signal saturation for different flux levels. We also discuss ways to correct for saturation in extended object images.