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Grating Sections

The SWS grating sections can be used at wavelengths between 2.38 tex2html_wrap_inline2404 m and 45.2 tex2html_wrap_inline2404 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 tex2html_wrap_inline2404 Vs tex2html_wrap_inline2446 , 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 tex2html_wrap_inline2434tex2html_wrap_inline2404 Vs tex2html_wrap_inline2446 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  tex2html_wrap_inline2404 Vs tex2html_wrap_inline2446 , 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.





SWS Consortium
Wed Aug 7 17:20:29 MET DST 1996