Linearity and High Signal‐to‐Noise Performance of the STIS CCD
Open Access
- 1 August 1999
- journal article
- research article
- Published by IOP Publishing in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- Vol. 111 (762) , 1009-1020
- https://doi.org/10.1086/316407
Abstract
On‐orbit data characteristics of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) CCD aboard the Hubble Space Telescope have been explored with early calibrations in a number of limiting conditions. At a gain of 4 e− DN−1, STIS CCD data show excellent linearity at high count levels, even for extreme oversaturation of individual central pixels. At low count levels we interpret a position‐ and intensity‐dependent nonlinearity in terms of charge transfer (in)efficiency in the parallel clocking direction and provide a simple model that accounts for this. A short time series of spectra was acquired at short‐exposure times and high signal‐to‐noise ratio (S/N) on the binary system α Cen A and B enabling the shutter repeatability to be quantified at 0.0002 s. A direct demonstration of near‐Poisson–limited time series with S/N>3000 is shown.Keywords
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