31,476 research outputs found
Evidence for self-interaction of charge distribution in charge-coupled devices
Charge-coupled devices (CCDs) are widely used in astronomy to carry out a
variety of measurements, such as for flux or shape of astrophysical objects.
The data reduction procedures almost always assume that ther esponse of a given
pixel to illumination is independent of the content of the neighboring pixels.
We show evidence that this simple picture is not exact for several CCD sensors.
Namely, we provide evidence that localized distributions of charges (resulting
from star illumination or laboratory luminous spots) tend to broaden linearly
with increasing brightness by up to a few percent over the whole dynamic range.
We propose a physical explanation for this "brighter-fatter" effect, which
implies that flatfields do not exactly follow Poisson statistics: the variance
of flatfields grows less rapidly than their average, and neighboring pixels
show covariances, which increase similarly to the square of the flatfield
average. These covariances decay rapidly with pixel separation. We observe the
expected departure from Poisson statistics of flatfields on CCD devices and
show that the observed effects are compatible with Coulomb forces induced by
stored charges that deflect forthcoming charges. We extract the strength of the
deflections from the correlations of flatfield images and derive the evolution
of star shapes with increasing flux. We show for three types of sensors that
within statistical uncertainties,our proposed method properly bridges
statistical properties of flatfields and the brighter-fatter effect
Range imager performance comparison in homodyne and heterodyne operating modes
Range imaging cameras measure depth simultaneously for every pixel in a given field of view. In most implementations the basic operating principles are the same. A scene is illuminated with an intensity modulated light source and the reflected signal is sampled using a gain-modulated imager. Previously we presented a unique heterodyne range imaging system that employed a bulky and power hungry image intensifier as the high speed gain-modulation mechanism. In this paper we present a new range imager using an internally modulated image sensor that is designed to operate in heterodyne mode, but can also operate in homodyne mode. We discuss homodyne and heterodyne range imaging, and the merits of the various types of hardware used to implement these systems. Following this we describe in detail the hardware and firmware components of our new ranger. We experimentally compare the two operating modes and demonstrate that heterodyne operation is less sensitive to some of the limitations suffered in homodyne mode, resulting in better linearity and ranging precision characteristics. We conclude by showing various qualitative examples that demonstrate the systemâs three-dimensional measurement performance
Variation of the Diameter of the Sun as Measured by the Solar Disk Sextant (SDS)
The balloon-borne Solar Disk Sextant (SDS) experiment has measured the
angular size of the Sun on seven occasions spanning the years 1992 to 2011. The
solar half-diameter -- observed in a 100-nm wide passband centred at 615 nm --
is found to vary over that period by up to 200 mas, while the typical estimated
uncertainty of each measure is 20 mas. The diameter variation is not in phase
with the solar activity cycle; thus, the measured diameter variation cannot be
explained as an observational artefact of surface activity. Other possible
instrument-related explanations for the observed variation are considered but
found unlikely, leading us to conclude that the variation is real. The SDS is
described here in detail, as is the complete analysis procedure necessary to
calibrate the instrument and allow comparison of diameter measures across
decades.Comment: 41 pages; appendix and 2 figures added plus some changes in text
based on referee's comments; to appear in MNRA
Absolute reflectance of a concave mirror used for astro-particle physics experiments
The absolute reflectance of a reflector and its point spread function are the
key parameters of a telescope for measuring light flux. Typically, one is using
low-cost technologies for producing mirrors for the needs of astro-particle
physics experiments. As a rule, these are operating telescopes in open air
conditions at desert or mountainous locations, for cost reasons without
protecting domes. The mirrors on such telescopes are exposed to sand in strong
winds, precipitation and large temperature variations. Due to weathering, their
reflectance is declining within few years. In this report we describe in a
great detail the application of an in-situ method to the MAGIC imaging air
Cherenkov telescopes for regularly monitoring their absolute reflectance and
the point spread function. Compared to similar work that was previously
performed, in this report we focus on important details of light losses due to
scattering. These allowed us to further refine the method and significantly
improve its precision. Also, we report on an in-situ comparison of two mirror
types produced with different technologies.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Astroparticle
Physics journa
The optical system of the H.E.S.S. imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, Part II: mirror alignment and point spread function
Mirror facets of the H.E.S.S. imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes are
aligned using stars imaged onto the closed lid of the PMT camera, viewed by a
CCD camera. The alignment procedure works reliably and includes the automatic
analysis of CCD images and control of the facet alignment actuators. On-axis,
80% of the reflected light is contained in a circle of less than 1 mrad
diameter. The spot widens with increasing angle to the telescope axis. In
accordance with simulations, the spot size has roughly doubled at an angle of
1.4 degr. from the axis. The expected variation of spot size with elevation due
to deformations of the support structure is visible, but is completely
non-critical over the usual working range. Overall, the optical quality of the
telescope exceeds the specifications.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figure
Characterization and correction of charge-induced pixel shifts in DECam
Interaction of charges in CCDs with the already accumulated charge
distribution causes both a flux dependence of the point-spread function (an
increase of observed size with flux, also known as the brighter/fatter effect)
and pixel-to-pixel correlations of the Poissonian noise in flat fields. We
describe these effects in the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) with charge dependent
shifts of effective pixel borders, i.e. the Antilogus et al. (2014) model,
which we fit to measurements of flat-field Poissonian noise correlations. The
latter fall off approximately as a power-law r^-2.5 with pixel separation r,
are isotropic except for an asymmetry in the direct neighbors along rows and
columns, are stable in time, and are weakly dependent on wavelength. They show
variations from chip to chip at the 20% level that correlate with the silicon
resistivity. The charge shifts predicted by the model cause biased shape
measurements, primarily due to their effect on bright stars, at levels
exceeding weak lensing science requirements. We measure the flux dependence of
star images and show that the effect can be mitigated by applying the reverse
charge shifts at the pixel level during image processing. Differences in
stellar size, however, remain significant due to residuals at larger distance
from the centroid.Comment: typo and formatting fixes, matches version published in JINS
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