The faint intergalactic-medium red-shifted emission balloon: future UV observations with EMCCDs

Gillian Kyne; Erika T. Hamden; Nicole Lingner; Patrick Morrissey; Shouleh Nikzad; D. Christopher Martin

doi:10.1117/12.2232879

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1 August 2016 The faint intergalactic-medium red-shifted emission balloon: future UV observations with EMCCDs

Gillian Kyne, Erika T. Hamden, Nicole Lingner, Patrick Morrissey, Shouleh Nikzad, D. Christopher Martin

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Proceedings Volume 9915, High Energy, Optical, and Infrared Detectors for Astronomy VII; 991507 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232879
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2016, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Abstract

We present the latest developments in our joint NASA/CNES suborbital project. This project is a balloon-borne UV multi-object spectrograph, which has been designed to detect faint emission from the circumgalactic medium (CGM) around low redshift galaxies. One major change from FIREBall-1 has been the use of a delta-doped Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD). EMCCDs can be used in photon-counting (PC) mode to achieve extremely low readout noise (¡ 1e^-). Our testing initially focused on reducing clock-induced-charge (CIC) through wave shaping and well depth optimisation with the CCD Controller for Counting Photons (CCCP) from Nüvü. This optimisation also includes methods for reducing dark current, via cooling and substrate voltage adjustment. We present result of laboratory noise measurements including dark current. Furthermore, we will briefly present some initial results from our first set of on-sky observations using a delta-doped EMCCD on the 200 inch telescope at Palomar using the Palomar Cosmic Web Imager (PCWI).

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Gillian Kyne, Erika T. Hamden, Nicole Lingner, Patrick Morrissey, Shouleh Nikzad, and D. Christopher Martin "The faint intergalactic-medium red-shifted emission balloon: future UV observations with EMCCDs", Proc. SPIE 9915, High Energy, Optical, and Infrared Detectors for Astronomy VII, 991507 (1 August 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2232879

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