Abstract
The Beijing-Arizona-Taiwan-Connecticut Color Survey of the Sky employs the 0.6/0.9 m Schmidt telescope of the National Astronomical Observatories, located at its Xinglong station (150 km northeast of Beijing), combined with a 20482 CCD data-taking system. Key to the success of this program is the development of a simple and efficient way to achieve supersky-quality, large-scale flat fields for our telescope-CCD combination. This is done by placing an isotropic diffuser right in front of the Schmidt corrector plate (the entrance pupil of the telescope) and illuminating the diffuser with scattered light off the dome screen. When we test this methodology by obtaining supersky flats at the zenith, we find that our "super" dome flats define the same large-scale inhomogeneities of the CCD that the supersky flat does, but with far greater signal-to-noise ratio. Hence, we show that defining our large-scale flat fields with our diffuser-dome technique is at least as good as using supersky flats for a ∼1°-wide field of view. This methodology can be implemented with any Schmidt telescope with similar results. Various other data acquisition effects that can affect CCD results at the 1 % level are also discussed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3642-3652 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Astronomical Journal |
| Volume | 127 |
| Issue number | 6 1782 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2004 Jun 1 |
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All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science
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Dome-diffuser flat-fielding for schmidt telescopes. / Zhou, Xu; Burstein, David; Byun, Yong-Ik; Chen, Jian Sheng; Chen, Wen Ping; Jiang, Zhao Ji; Ma, Jun; Sun, Wei Hsin; Windhorst, Rogier A.; Wu, Hong; Wen, Xu; Zhu, Jin.
In: Astronomical Journal, Vol. 127, No. 6 1782, 01.06.2004, p. 3642-3652.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
TY - JOUR
T1 - Dome-diffuser flat-fielding for schmidt telescopes
AU - Zhou, Xu
AU - Burstein, David
AU - Byun, Yong-Ik
AU - Chen, Jian Sheng
AU - Chen, Wen Ping
AU - Jiang, Zhao Ji
AU - Ma, Jun
AU - Sun, Wei Hsin
AU - Windhorst, Rogier A.
AU - Wu, Hong
AU - Wen, Xu
AU - Zhu, Jin
PY - 2004/6/1
Y1 - 2004/6/1
N2 - The Beijing-Arizona-Taiwan-Connecticut Color Survey of the Sky employs the 0.6/0.9 m Schmidt telescope of the National Astronomical Observatories, located at its Xinglong station (150 km northeast of Beijing), combined with a 20482 CCD data-taking system. Key to the success of this program is the development of a simple and efficient way to achieve supersky-quality, large-scale flat fields for our telescope-CCD combination. This is done by placing an isotropic diffuser right in front of the Schmidt corrector plate (the entrance pupil of the telescope) and illuminating the diffuser with scattered light off the dome screen. When we test this methodology by obtaining supersky flats at the zenith, we find that our "super" dome flats define the same large-scale inhomogeneities of the CCD that the supersky flat does, but with far greater signal-to-noise ratio. Hence, we show that defining our large-scale flat fields with our diffuser-dome technique is at least as good as using supersky flats for a ∼1°-wide field of view. This methodology can be implemented with any Schmidt telescope with similar results. Various other data acquisition effects that can affect CCD results at the 1 % level are also discussed.
AB - The Beijing-Arizona-Taiwan-Connecticut Color Survey of the Sky employs the 0.6/0.9 m Schmidt telescope of the National Astronomical Observatories, located at its Xinglong station (150 km northeast of Beijing), combined with a 20482 CCD data-taking system. Key to the success of this program is the development of a simple and efficient way to achieve supersky-quality, large-scale flat fields for our telescope-CCD combination. This is done by placing an isotropic diffuser right in front of the Schmidt corrector plate (the entrance pupil of the telescope) and illuminating the diffuser with scattered light off the dome screen. When we test this methodology by obtaining supersky flats at the zenith, we find that our "super" dome flats define the same large-scale inhomogeneities of the CCD that the supersky flat does, but with far greater signal-to-noise ratio. Hence, we show that defining our large-scale flat fields with our diffuser-dome technique is at least as good as using supersky flats for a ∼1°-wide field of view. This methodology can be implemented with any Schmidt telescope with similar results. Various other data acquisition effects that can affect CCD results at the 1 % level are also discussed.
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U2 - 10.1086/383288
DO - 10.1086/383288
M3 - Article
VL - 127
SP - 3642
EP - 3652
JO - Astronomical Journal
JF - Astronomical Journal
SN - 0004-6256
IS - 6 1782
ER -