Coded-Aperture X- or $\gamma$-ray telescope with Least- squares image reconstruction. III. Data acquisition and analysis enhancements
Session 2 -- Software
Display presentation, Monday, June 12, 1995, 9:20am - 6:30pm

## [2.06] Coded-Aperture X- or $\gamma$-ray telescope with Least- squares image reconstruction. III. Data acquisition and analysis enhancements

T.P.Kohman (Carnegie-Mellon University)

The design of a cosmic X- or $\gamma$-ray telescope with least- squares image reconstruction and its simulated operation have been described (Rev. Sci. Instrum. 60, 3396 and 3410 (1989)). Use of an auxiliary open aperture ("limiter") ahead of the coded aperture limits the object field to fewer pixels than detector elements, permitting least-squares reconstruction with improved accuracy in the imaged field; it also yields a uniformly sensitive ("flat") central field. The design has been enhanced to provide for mask-antimask operation. This cancels and eliminates uncertainties in the detector background, and the simulated results have virtually the same statistical accuracy (pixel-by-pixel output-input RMSD) as with a single mask alone. The simulations have been made more realistic by incorporating instrumental blurring of sources. A second-stage least-squares procedure had been developed to determine the precise positions and total fluxes of point sources responsible for clusters of above-background pixels in the field resulting from the first-stage reconstruction. Another program converts source positions in the image plane to celestial coordinates and vice versa, the image being a gnomic projection of a region of the sky.