Photometric Characteristics of Data from the Hubble Space Telescope Goddard-High Resolution Spectrograph

Abstract

The G-HRS is one of four axial scientific instruments which will fly aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (ref 1,2). It will produce spectroscopic observations in the 1050 A ≤ λ ≤ 3300 A region with greater spectral, spatial and temporal resolution than has been possible with previous space-based instruments. Five first order diffraction gratings and one Echelle provide three modes of spectroscopic operation with resolving powers of R = λ/ΔΔ = 2000, 20000 and 90000. Two magnetically focused, pulse-counting digicon detectors, which differ only in the nature of their photocathodes, produce data whose photometric quality is usually determined by statistical noise in the signal (ref 3). Under ideal circumstances the signal to noise ratio increases as the square root of the exposure time. For some observations detector dark count, instrumental scattered light or granularity in the pixel to pixel sensitivity will cause additional noise. The signal to noise ratio of the net spectrum will then depend on several parameters, and will increase more slowly with exposure time. We have analyzed data from the ground based calibration programs, and have developed a theoretical model of the HRS performance (ref 4). Our results allow observing and data reduction strategies to be optimized when factors other than photon statistics influence the photometric quality of the data.