The SWS grating sections can be used at wavelengths between 2.38 m and 45.2 m. This section links instrument units to units applicable to astronomical sources with a high precision on a single detector element basis, and provides the strategy for planning of observations.
The SWS instrumental signal-level unit is Vs , the average rise of the voltage of the ramp during one second of time. It is found that the signal response of the instrument is a linear function of the illumination over a very large range of input signals (0.5 - 100,000 Jy), when hysteresis effects are ignored. Therefore this unit is fully qualified for simple linear calculations backwards and forwards relating source flux density, instrument signal level, instrument noise level and noise equivalent flux density (NEFD , i.e., the input flux density which gives an output signal with a signal-to-noise ratio SNR = 1). The SWS grating sections produce a 2 Vs signal on a single detector element for a source flux density of 1 Jy. As the SWS grating detectors produce a minimum noise in a 2 sec integration in the range 0.7-3.0 Vs , independent of wavelength, this statement provides the full specification of the SWS grating maximum sensitivity on a single detector element basis with an accuracy of about a factor 2.