Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Boggess, A..
Several IUE spectra of planetary nebulae show an absorption feature shortward of 1500 A which is believed to be due to H2(+). The nebulae are excited by stars of spectral type O3-O7 or continuum, and all but one have double-shell structure.
The L alpha/H beta ratio and line profiles for several galaxies are presented. The continuous energy distribution of NGC 4151 and MKN 509 are presented from the X-ray region to the infrared.
The instrumentation and functioning of the IUE are discussed. The design of the telescope, fine error sensors, echelle spectrographs, and television cameras, as well as their integration, is described. The optical characteristics of the IUE are listed and the schematic arrangement of the detector is depicted. Sources of background noise are assessed, including the thermionic effects in the UV converters and television tubes, radiation from the earth's trapped electron belts, wide angle white light scattering from the earth and sun, scattering of dispersed light caused by low dispersion gratings, photometric calibration, and photometric stability. IUE sensitivity changes during the first three years of operation are shown together with sensitivity curves for short and long wavelengths. Modes of wavelength determination are considered.
The instrument design is complete and many components and subsystems have been manufactured and tested. Solar-blind, multichannel, pulse counting detectors for two ultraviolet spectral bands have been developed and satisfactory flight units have been chosen. A large, lightweight graphite-epoxy optical bench, utilizing fingerplate joints with no metallic parts in order to minimize thermal expansion, has been built. Tests of the engineering model torque-motor-driven grating carrousel indicate that this critical system exceeds tight specifications for accurate and repeatable angular positioning. A complement of large, high-frequency gratings and an echelle is being completed in several laboratories. Software resident in a computer on the spacecraft will control the spectrograph with the capability to alter procedures in response to real-time evaluation of the data.
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Periodic visible light variations of the old nova V 603 Aql (1918) were detected with the Fine Error Sensor Instrument (FES) aboard the IUE satellite. Continuous observations were carried out during more than two complete cycles. The light curve shows a broad maximum and a pronounced minimum which was covered three times, and is tentatively interpreted as an eclipse of the accretion disk around the white dwarf by the late main sequence component.
Preliminary results of the analysis of the low resolution spectra from the recurring nova WZ Sagittae are discussed with reference to the similarity between WZ Sge and dwarf novae and the applicability of accretion disk models. It is found that the spectrum observed on Dec. 1, 1978, is in very good agreement with a simple steady-state disk model of Lynden-Bell (1969) which predicts a power law spectrum over a limited range of frequency. Analysis of the observations within the framework of this model gives a value of the mass of the white dwarf larger than that estimated by Robinson et al (1978).
IUE observations indicate that the spectrum of 3C 273 is similar to that of other large-redshift quasars. There is a large excess of flux in the range 2400 A to 5300 A, which encompasses the Balmer jump region but which does not appear to be explainable by Balmer emission. The intensity ratio of Lyman-alpha to H-beta is 5.5, in agreement with other measures and a factor 6 smaller than the recombination value. The only absorption lines in the spectrum are due to our Galaxy. There is marginal evidence for a depression of the continuum shortward of the Lyman-alpha emission line, but the errors are too large to warrant any conclusion that 3C 273 has a rich absorption-line spectrum such as that seen in large-redshift quasars. The absence of emission and absorption lines of Fe II leads to the conclusion that resonance fluorescence probably produces the visual Fe II emission lines.
The use of the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) to search for stars having neither a hot corona nor a cool outer atmosphere, but a lukewarm corona is outlined. An interactive computer system permits extensive analysis of the data immediately after transmission to earth, allowing the results of one exposure to influence the taking of subsequent exposures. The observation program is illustrated for the star HR 1099, noting that observations were taken while previous spectra were being analyzed. Observations of many stars of spectral types G and K lead to the construction of a border region on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram between stars with hot coronas and those with cool outer atmospheres. Stars lying near this border region were then observed, however none with lukewarm coronas were found. The interactive control facility in the satellite control room is considered an important factor in the efficient implementation of the search procedure.
The high resolution spectrograph (HRS) for ultraviolet astronomy with the Space Telescope will provide a spectral resolution of approximately 120,000 over a nominal wavelength range of 110-320 nm, together with a spatial resolution of about 0.25 arc seconds. The two detectors will consist of 512-element Digicons with cesium telluride and cesium iodide photocathodes, respectively. Photoelectrons in transit between the photocathodes and the diodes within the Digicons can be deflected in two axes with 12-bit resolution. This feature facilitates a design that emphasizes reliability since (once a hermetic seal is opened in orbit), only two moving parts, a grating carrousel and a shutter, are required for regular operation of the HRS. The instrument will be controlled by a computer in the spacecraft. The scientific objectives of the HRS investigation relate to interstellar matter in our own and nearby galaxies, physical processes of stellar mass loss and mass transfer, chemical abundances, bright quasars and Seyfert galaxy nuclei, and solar system phenomena.
An analysis of IUE observations of Seyfert galaxies and QSOs indicates that they have the same energy source and heating mechanisms. Neither collisional de-excitation nor simple dust models are sufficient to explain the small L alpha/H beta ratio of Seyfert galaxies and low z QSOs, which is below the recombination value. For Seyfert galaxies, the Log nu (1450) correlates well with Log W lambda (C IV), with a slope similar to that of QSOs. Regarding X-ray fluxes, which were obtained by the A2 experiment onboard the HEAO-1 satellite, the L alpha luminosity correlates well with the continuum luminosity at 1450 A, and there is a positive correlation between the X-ray luminosity and the full line width at zero intensity.
By means of a collaboration across the Atlantic, very long exposures (about 14 hours) have been made with IUE of two high redshift QSO's during October 1978. Target acquisition and initiation was carried out at Vilspa, and the completion of the exposure and read-out of the image was executed at Goddard. The first object Q 2204-408 is an optical QSO with m(v) = 17.5 and z = 3.18 whose spectrum had just been detected earlier with a 350 minute exposure in the short wavelength spectrograph (Wilson, et al. 1978). In this case two longer exposures were obtained in both spectrographs. The other object is the radio QSO PKS 2126-158 with m(v) = 17.3 and z = 3.27 for which a detectable spectrum was obtained in the short wavelength spectrograph.
The paper describes the general design, instrumentation, and ground control system of the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite, which will serve as an astronomical observatory providing both high and low resolution UV spectra of sources other than the sun. Basic data are given on the telescope, the UV-visible converter, the spectrograph optics, the camera response, and the communications systems.
A report on the initial performance of the IUE satellite, launched in January, 1978, is given. Attention is given to optical performance, camera performance, background corrections, photometric performance, and data reduction. Samples of high-dispersion and low-dispersion spectra are shown. A remaining problem of proper separation of high dispersion orders in data reduction is discussed.
During the commissioning phase of IUE observations were made of a selection of hot stars: the white dwarf HZ43, the hot subdwarf BD +75 deg 325, the nucleus of the planetary nebula NGC 6826, the dwarf nova SS Cygni, and the peculiar object Eta Carinae. The observations were made in the low dispersion mode and the data have been reduced using a preliminary calibration. The results are presented and discussed for each object.
Initial IUE observations of four cool stars are reported. Observed fluxes and surface fluxes are given for several UV emission lines in the spectral range 1175-2000 A, obtained at low and high dispersion with the short-wavelength spectrograph and camera. These lines are formed in the outer atmospheres of these stars, in regions presumably analogous to the solar chromosphere and transition region. The surface fluxes in the lines increase along the sequence: quiet sun, Epsilon Eri, Lambda And, Alpha Aur, and HR1099. The 2.8-d RS CVn-type binary HR1099, observed on 1 March 1978 near the end of a major flaring episode, has line surface fluxes roughly 100 times that of the quiet sun, similar to those seen in solar flares. Line profiles and flux ratios in multiplets for Capella are presented, and comments given on the opacity of the lines and on a tendency of line width to increase with temperature of formation.
Results from a preliminary study of interstellar absorption lines in the spectra of the three stars HD149757, HD93521 and HD153919, observed by the IUE during its commissioning phase are presented. They demonstrate the capabilities of the IUE for interstellar research. Results from a preliminary study of the emission line spectrum of the planetary nebula NGC 7027 are outlined and used to study its interstellar reddening.
The first UV spectroscopic measurements of binary X-ray sources with IUE show highly variable emission from a photoionized plasma in the object HZ Her, and give evidence for localized circumsystem material in the binary source Cygnus X-1. In addition, a substantial stellar wind is found in one of the brightest identified X-ray sources HD153919. This system may be surrounded by an extensive H II region unusual in its content of high excitation ion species.