Next: Introduction
The Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope:
Performance and Calibration during the Astro-1 Mission
Arthur F. Davidsen, Knox S. Long, Samuel T. Durrance,
William P. Blair, Charles W. Bowers, Steven J. Conard, Paul D. Feldman,
Henry C. Ferguson, Glen H. Fountain, Randy A. Kimble, Gerard A. Kriss,
H. Warren Moos, and Kenneth A. Potocki
Abstract:
The Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope
(HUT) was flown aboard the space shuttle
Columbia on the Astro-1 mission from 1990 December 2--11.
Spectrophotometric observations of 77 astronomical sources were made
throughout the far ultraviolet (912--1850 Å) at a resolution
of 3 Å, and, for a small number of sources, in the
extreme ultraviolet (415--912 Å) beyond the Lyman limit at a resolution
of 1.5 Å. The objects observed include quasars, galaxy clusters,
active and normal galaxies, cataclysmic variables, globular clusters, supernova remnants,
planetary nebulae, white dwarfs, Wolf-Rayet stars, Be stars, cool stars
with active coronae, comet Levy (1990 XX), Jupiter and Io. HUT has provided the first
spectrophotometry in the sub-Lyman- region for most of
these sources. In this paper we describe the HUT
instrument and its performance in orbit. We also present a HUT observation of the DA white dwarf G191-B2B and derive the photometric calibration curve for the instrument from a comparison of the observation with a model stellar atmosphere.
The sensitivity reaches a maximum at 1050 Å, where 1 photon cm s Å yields 9.5 counts s Å, and remains within a factor 2 of this value from 912 to 1600 Å. The instrumental dark count measured on orbit was less than counts s Å.
afd@pha.jhu.edu