Photon-Counting Reticontm Detector

Marc Davis; David W. Latham

doi:10.1117/12.957069

3 May 1979 Photon-Counting Reticon^TM Detector

Marc Davis, David W. Latham

Proceedings Volume 0172, Instrumentation in Astronomy III; (1979) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.957069
Event: Instrumentation in Astronomy, 1979, Tucson, United States

Abstract

For applications in faint-object spectroscopy at the Mt. Hopkins Observatory, a photon-counting detector has been built using a dual 936 Reticon diode array fibre-optically coupled to a high-gain image intensifier package. The electronic signal processing follows closely the design of Shectman; the diode array is scanned every millisecond, each frame is subtracted from the previous to minimize multiple counts from the tails of the P-20 phosphor decays, and the centroid of each photon event is located to recover much of the resolution of the first image intensifier. For each detected event, the corresponding address in a Nova computer is updated by a direct memory access, thus allowing simultaneous data collection, analysis, and display. Two different intensifier packages have been used, both sandwiching a 25-mm Gen II microchannel-plate tube fibre-optically between 40-mm Gen I tubes for the first and third stages. This has made possible a compact intensifier package at the expense of a poor pulse-height distribution. Our first version of the detector has been in use with the 60-inch telescope at Mt. Hopkins since February 1978. A new version using a custom dual RL1024SF Reticon is now under construction for use on the Multiple-Mirror Telescope.

Citation Download Citation

Marc Davis and David W. Latham "Photon-Counting Reticon^TM Detector", Proc. SPIE 0172, Instrumentation in Astronomy III, (3 May 1979); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.957069

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