Characteristics of EXITE and plans for SN 1987A

1 January 1988

proceedings article
Published by AIP Publishing in AIP Conference Proceedings

Vol. 170 (1) , 444-450
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.37245

Abstract

The development, integration, and testing of the Energetic X‐ray Imaging Telescope Experiment (EXITE) are described. EXITE is a balloon‐borne hard x‐ray imaging payload with high sensitivity in the 20–300 keV band, angular resolution of 22 arcmin (with source locations to ∼2 arcmin) in a 3.4° FWHM field‐of‐view and energy resolution of 9% at 122 keV. Details of the detector system, a 34 cm diameter NaI scintillation crystal with image intensification and position‐sensitive readout, are described as well as the integration and testing of EXITE into a new balloon gondola with stable (∼1 arcmin) pointing. EXITE is able to carry out high‐sensitivity (∼10 mCrab) observations of SN 1987A to measure the Compton‐degraded x‐ray and gamma ray continuum, to search for the 122 keV cobalt‐57 line, and (at 0.1 msec time resolution) to search for the new pulsar thought to have been produced in the Sn 1987A event.

Keywords

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: