The HRC (High Resolution Camera) is a photon counting instrument to be flown on the Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF). It is a large field of view, high angular resolution, detector for the x-ray telescope. The HRC consists of a CsI coated microchannel plate (MCP) acting as a soft x-ray photocathode, followed by a second MCP for high electronic gain. The MCPs are readout by a crossed grid of resistively coupled wires to provide high spatial resolution along with timing and pulse height data. The instrument will be used in two modes, as a direct imaging detector with a limiting sensitivity of 10^-15 ergs/cm² sec in a 10⁵ second exposure, and as a readout for an objective transmission grating providing spectral resolution of several hundreds to thousands.

Date Published: 14 July 1986
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 0597, X-Ray Instrumentation in Astronomy, (14 July 1986); doi: 10.1117/12.966592

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0597:
X-Ray Instrumentation in Astronomy
J. Leonard Culhane, Editor(s)