ccds. ccds—the good (+) linear response photometry is “simple” +high efficiency, compared to...
Post on 19-Dec-2015
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CCDs—the good (+)
Linear response photometry is “simple”
+ High efficiency, compared to other detectors
+ Sensitive to many wavelengths
+ 2-D arrays possible in large formats
+ Can be shuttered, or “frame transfer”
+ High dynamic range (i.e., contrast)
CCDs—the bad (-)
- Read noise: electrons not transferred perfectly (but pretty good)
- Dark current– Temperature sensitive– Coolant/cooler?– Accumulates condensates (i.e., gook)
CCDs—the ugly
Electron wells are finite and imperfectLeakage
Saturation blooms
Cosmic rays
Pixel-to-pixel variationAge-dependent
Linearity (good)• Expose to more light, get more
electrons—linearly increasing
• Photometry made easier because signal can be expressed as (data numbers per second), unambiguously
• Makes comparison of different images easier
Quantum efficiency• Generally, higher than most other
detection schemes—that’s good (especially photographic film)
• Wavelength dependent
Dark current• Thermal motions of electrons
produces a spurious signal that is not due to incident light
• Temperature-dependent, so most cameras are cooled
• The level of spurious signal is still linear w.r.t. temperature and exposure duration, so can be subtracted from the “real” images
• Examples…
Temperature dependence of dark current
Q: Why’d we do this?
A: The camera is cold, so any residue floating around in the telescope will condense on the CCD. Yuck! Therefore, periodic “bakeouts” to remove gook from the CCD.
Pixel-to-pixel variation
• Differences in charge transfer efficiency
• Differences in well depth (less important)
• Shorted pixels continuously leaking charge
• Age-dependent (see example)
• Compensate via flat fielding and subtraction of dark frames
Pixel saturation• Potential wells have a finite depth, can hold
only a finite number of electrons
• 100,000 to 200,000 electrons is typical limit
• When the well is full, where do those electrons go?
• They spill over into neighboring pixels
• Example…
Composite Example
2. Subtract dark frame
3. Correct for stray light (no true flat fields for X-rays)
4. Co-register the cleaned images, normalize for exposure time
5. Replace saturated parts of “long” exposure with pixels from “short” exposure, to yield the final product…
Why composite?• Trivial answer: It looks nice.
• Less trivial answer: Enhanced dynamic range. You get to see the faint parts and the brighter parts, with quantitative accuracy.