An airborne telescope utilizing a scanning interferometer and video recording system has been used by the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory for coronal-emission-line-profile measurements during the total solar eclipses of 1972 and 1973. A 250 mm diameter f/8.0 achromatic doublet refractor served as the objective lens, and a pressure scanned Fabry-Perot interferometer with narrow band transmission filters provided 0.005 nm spectral resolution of the selected emis-sion lines. A variable-gain channel-plate image intensifier, fiber-optically coupled to an Sb2 S3 vidicon tube, was adapted for use as a high sensitivity image detector. At maximum sensitivity this system was capable of recording a video image with signals as small as 5 x 10-9 J/m2 incident upon the in-tensifier photocathode. The vidicon tube was scanned at a rate of 60 fields per second in a 500-line, non-interlaced television format. The composite video signals were recorded on standard video tapes from which they were digitized for subsequent computer processing.

Date Published: 1 February 1975
PDF: 5 pages
Opt. Eng. 14(1) 140176 doi: 10.1117/12.7971770
Published in: Optical Engineering Volume 14, Issue 1