XIS First Light
The Supernova Remnant E0102-72.3 in the Small Magellanic Cloud
2005 August 13
Credit: ISAS/JAXA
On the left, the images taken with the 4 XIS cameras are shown. The apparent extent of these images are not indicative of the size of E0102-72.3 (which is approximately 1 arcmin across), but are instead dominated by the point spread function (PSF) of the X-ray Telescopes (XRTs). The XRTs were designed not as an exquisite imager as the Chandra telescope was, but instead as efficient X-ray collectors with a moderate angular resolution. These images confirm that the XRTs are performing as expected, although observations of point sources will be used to quantify the actual in-orbit PSF.
On the right, the spectra obtained with two of the XIS units are shown. Three of the units contain a front-side illuminated (FI) CCD chip each; we show the spectrum obtained with XIS-0 as an example. This shows a typical spectral quality seen with all FI CCDs. One unit, XIS-1, contains a new generation back-side illuminated (BI) CCD. As with previous BI CCDs, this chip has high detection efficiency at low energies; unlike previous BI chips, it has a spectrum resolution comparable to FI chips at low energies, which is clearly demonstrated by the clean separation of OVII and OVIII lines in this spectrum.
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