KONUS - Venera KONUS 11 & 12 Bursts

Overview

The KONUS instruments were flown on pairs of Venera spacecraft. Veneras 11/12 were launched in September 1978; bursts were recorded through January 1980. Veneras 13/14 were launched in November 1981 and were operational through approximately March 1983. The Veneras were interplanetary spacecraft, which flew to Venus, and thus each spacecraft had whole sky coverage for most of its mission.

Catalog Bibcode

1981Ap&SS..75...47M

References

The KONUS instrument is described in Mazets, E.P. & Golenetskii, S.V. 1981,
	Ap. Space Sci., vol. 75, p. 47.

The original KONUS 11/12 catalog is in the following three separate articles:

        Mazets, E.P., and Golenetskii, S.V. 1981, Astrophys. Space Sci., 75,
             47.

        Mazets, E.P., Golenetskii, S.V., Ilyinskii, V.N., Panov, V.N.,
             Aptekar, R.L., Guruan, Yu.A., Proskura, M.P., Sokolov, I.A.,
             Sokolova, Z.Ya., and Kharitonova, T.V., Dyatchkov, A.V.,
             Khavenson, N.G. 1981a, Astrophys. Space Sci., 80, 3.

        _____. 1981b, Astrophys. Space Sci., 80, 85.

Derived parameters are compiled in Norris 1983, Ph. D. thesis, U. Md.,
	NASA TM 85031.

Instrument Information

The KONUS instrument was designed to have quasi-omnidirectional response to bursts. The instrument consisted of six NaI(Tl) crystals, each 4 cm radius X 3 cm depth, arranged on the three orthogonal space axes. The cylindrical side of each detector was shielded with lead and tin, with the back side faced with heavy lead glass and viewed by a photomultiplier tube. Each detector then preferentially saw photons arriving from the forward direction. The spacecraft operated in two modes, spin-stabilized and triaxially stabilized. In the latter mode, the angularly dependent responses of three detectors afforded coarse (nominal uncertainties of ~ 5 deg), one-spacecraft localizations. The former mode required detection by KONUS instruments on both Veneras, the resultant localization being the intersection of two annuli.

The burst spectra were recorded in 16 quasi-logarithmically spaced energy channels spanning the range 30 keV to 2 MeV. Temporal resolution was 1/64 s for the first 2 s, 1/4 for the next 32 s, decreasing to 1 s for the remainder of the 66 s record. Burst trigger integration times were 0.3 s and 1.5 s.

The HEASARC's KONUS 11/12 catalog of gamma-ray bursts includes the original published source positions and fluences, and derived peak intensities and durations.

Parameters

Duration
Duration of the burst in seconds.

Fluence
The fluence, i.e, the energy flux integrated over time for the event, of the gamma-ray burst, in the energy range above 30 keV, and in units of ergs per square cm.

Name
The gamma-ray burst identification (i.e., name) consists of the date and, if there were two bursts on the same date, a letter "a" or "b" to indicate which occurred first on that date. The format for the name is yr.mm.dd[id].

Peak_Intensity
Peak intensity of the burst in counts per 1/4 second.

Time
The time that the burst was recorded.

Contact Person

Questions regarding the KONUS database table can be addressed to the HEASARC User Hotline.

Page Author: Browse Software Development Team
Last Modified: Wednesday, 29-Jan-2020 16:34:45 EST