ACCESS: Enabling an Improved Flux Scale for Astrophysics

Computer Science – Performance

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Scientific paper

Improvements in the precision of the astrophysical flux scale are needed to answer fundamental scientific questions ranging from cosmology to stellar physics. In particular, the precise calibration of the flux scale across the bandpass extending from 0.35 - 1.7 microns is fundamental to the precise determination of dark energy parameters based on SNeIa photometry. ACCESS - Absolute Color Calibration Experiment for Standard Stars (Kaiser et al., 2009) is a rocket-borne payload that will enable the transfer of absolute laboratory detector standards from NIST to a network of stellar standards with a calibration accuracy of 1% and a spectral resolving power of R = 500 across the 0.35-1.7 micron bandpass.
Among the strategies being employed to minimize calibration uncertainties are: (1) judicious selection of standard stars (previous calibration heritage, minimal spectral features, robust stellar atmosphere models), (2) execution of observations above the Earth's atmosphere (eliminates atmospheric contamination of the stellar spectrum), (3) a single optical path and detector (to minimize visible to NIR cross-calibration uncertainties), (4)
establishment of an a priori error budget, (5) on-board monitoring of instrument performance, and (6) fitting stellar atmosphere models to the data to search for discrepancies and enable extrapolation to wavelengths outside the ACCESS bandpass. The instrument design, calibration and observing strategy will be presented.
Support for this work was provided by NASA through grant NNX08AI65G and DOE through grant DE-FG02-07ER41506.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

ACCESS: Enabling an Improved Flux Scale for Astrophysics does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with ACCESS: Enabling an Improved Flux Scale for Astrophysics, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and ACCESS: Enabling an Improved Flux Scale for Astrophysics will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-969091

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.