HEAPOW: Astrosat First Light (2015 Oct 19)

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HEAPOW: Astrosat First Light (2015 Oct 19)

Astrosat, India's first space observatory, was launched on September 28, 2015. Since that time, the observatory has been carefully coming to life. The first instrument to get turned on was Astrosat's Charged Particle Monitor (CPM), an instrument designed to help detect and protect the observatory from times of high background of electrons and other charged particles. The next instrument to be turned on, on October 5, was the Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTI), Astrosat's hard X-ray detector, which obtains pictures of the hard X-ray sky in the 10-150 keV band. To test that things were working as expected, on October 6, Astrosat was pointed at high-energy astrophysicists' favorite target, the Crab Nebula, the famous remnant of the supernova which was detected by Chinese astronomers in CE 1054. The image above is the first image to be obtained by the CZTI, and, by extension, the first astrophysical image to be obtained by Astrosat. The Crab is shown as the bright point near the center of the CZTI image. In about a month, all three of Astrosat's X-ray instruments (the CZTI, the LAXPC and the SXT) should be operational and returning astounding information about the X-ray Universe.

ISRO: Astrosat First Light: CZT Imager Looks at Crab Nebula
http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=35236

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Author: Dr. Michael F. Corcoran

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Scientists Celebrate Successful Operation of Astrosat Space Camera
University of Leicester | 2015 Oct 30

[c][attachment=0]Astrosat_PKS_2155-304.png[/attachment][/c][hr][/hr]

Scientists from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester are finally able to celebrate after an anxious month since the launch of Astrosat, the first Indian satellite dedicated to astronomical observations.

The door, on the x-ray camera which had been assembled at the University by a team led by Dr Gordon Stewart, was opened on Monday 26 October, allowing the soft x-ray telescope to make its first observation of the sky. ...

The target of the first observations is named PKS2155-304 and is one of an enigmatic class of supermassive black holes accelerating jets of material to speeds near the speed of light which point towards and away from the earth, the BL Lac objects.

Analysis of the data show that the camera (and the telescope) are operating perfectly and the data quality is excellent. ...

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Astrosat's Soft X-ray Telescope Sees First Light
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research | via EurekAlert | 2015 Oct 31

[img3="Astrosat was pointed at a target, PKS 2155-304, a special type of quasar, for its first light. The targeted object is an X-ray source, belonging to an enigmatic class of supermassive black holes in a galaxy 1.5 billion light years away. (Credit: TIFR)"]http://media.eurekalert.org/multimedia_ ... 05_web.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]

The Soft X-ray focusing Telescope (SXT) onboard Astrosat, India's first satellite dedicated to astronomical observations, saw its first light from an astronomical source on Oct. 26, 2015, after the camera door was opened at 06:30 UT. The telescope door covering the optics had already been opened 10 days earlier.

The SXT is India's first X-ray telescope based on doubly reflecting grazing incidence optics, containing 320 mirrors assembled together in 2 sets of 40 co-axial shells. The golden mirrors and the precision structure for assembling them were all built in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. All the mirrors assembled at different radii from the central axis were aligned perfectly to image a single point, and the entire telescope was then further aligned with an X-ray camera, in TIFR. The camera was previously assembled independently in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, at the University of Leicester, UK and delivered to TIFR. The electronics to control the CCD and its thermal control, and the commands to read data in different modes of operation were made at TIFR.

The Astrosat was pointed at a target, PKS 2155-304, a special type of quasar known as BL Lac type object, for its first light. The targeted object is an X-ray source, belonging to an enigmatic class of supermassive black holes in a galaxy very far away (1.5 billion light years away) which shoots out powerful jets of highly accelerated particles at speeds near the speed of light and pointing quite closely towards the Earth. The light from the jet overpowers the light from the galaxy and can be seen at almost all wavelengths from radio to very high-energy gamma-rays. ...

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First light from Large Area X-ray Proportional Counter (LAXPC) instrument onboard ASTROSAT
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research | via EurekAlert | 2015 Dec 09

ASTROSAT is India's first dedicated science space mission which was launched on 28 September 2015. The Large Area X-ray Propositional Counter (LAXPC), designed and developed at TIFR, Mumbai, is one of the major payloads on ASTROSAT. The LAXPC instrument became fully operational on 19 October 2015 for the first time in space. A cluster of three co-aligned identical detectors provides a large area of collection of about 8000 cm2. LAXPC will provide the largest effective area among all the satellite missions flown so far, worldwide, and will remain so for the next 10 years, for X-ray studies in the 3-80 keV energy range. The large detection volume (15 cm depth) filled with xenon gas at ~ 2 atmospheres pressure, results in detection efficiency greater than 50%, above 30 keV.

The first light from LAXPC has allowed us to observe Black hole X-ray binaries, Microquasars, X-ray pulsars, Active Galactic nuclei (AGN)s and Supernova remnants, providing us with very high quality data. The LAXPC instrument is functioning perfectly and has achieved all detector parameters/goals as proposed initially. The LAXPC instrument is more efficient than NASA's highly successful RXTE/PCA X-ray mission, above 20 keV, and it shows better spectral and timing characteristics.

The LAXPC detectors have the largest collecting area among any X-ray instrument ever built in the world, and have been designed and developed at TIFR, Mumbai. It is a large payload with a total of eight flight packages (414 kg out of 730 kg of all five science payloads). Designing and fabricating this payload was highly challenging and took a decade to come to fruition. Prof. P. C. Agrawal initiated the design and development of the LAXPC payload in 2002. Prof. R. K. Manchanda took over in 2011. When he retired in November, 2012, Prof. J. S. Yadav took over the development of the LAXPC payload. Also, Prof. H. M. Antia played a leading role in developing the GEANT4 simulation for the LAXPC detectors in record time.

The LAXPC instrument is best suited to explore extreme conditions such as strong gravity regions, extremely powerful accelerators in the universe and regions of the highest densities & magnetic fields. The primary objectives are to study binary star systems containing neutron stars and black holes, accretion flow, accretion disk- radio jet connection, estimation of the magnetic fields of neutron stars, and to study Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and blazer systems beyond our galaxy. ...