Calibration of flight model CCDs for CoRoT mission

Vincent Lapeyrere (1, 2, 3) , Pernelle Bernardi (1, 2, 3) , Jean-Tristan Buey (1, 2, 3) , Michel Auvergne (1, 2, 3) , Didier Tiphene (1, 2, 3)

1 LESIA - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique
2 Pôle Astronomie du LESIA
3 Ingénieurs, Techniciens et Administratifs

CoRoT (Convection, Rotation and Transit) is a mission of high-accuracy photometry with two scientific programmes: asteroseismology and planet finding, using CCDs as detectors. Ten 2048×4096 CCDs manufactured by E2V (42-80) were calibrated on Meudon test bench in order to choose the best ones for flight. A very high instrument stability is needed. Taking into account the environmental perturbations (temperature, attitude control system jitter, radiations, etc.) we studied sensitivity of CCD gain and quantum efficiency to temperature and sensitivity of the output signal to bias voltages. Special attention was paid to pixel capacity and noise sources coming from dark current and pixel response non-uniformity. The calibration results together with the expected voltages and temperature fluctuations are compared with the specifications.

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Vincent Lapeyrere, Pernelle Bernardi, Jean-Tristan Buey, Michel Auvergne, Didier Tiphene. Calibration of flight model CCDs for CoRoT mission. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2006, 365, pp.1171-1179. ⟨10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09793.x⟩. ⟨hal-03786308⟩