At this moment, six instruments are operational in space: XTE-ASM, HETE-WXM, SWIFT-BAT and the three instruments on INTEGRAL. MART-LIME probably will not fly. EXIST is being considered as a Black Hole Finder Probe in NASA's Beyond Einstein program.
With six operational instruments, coded aperture imaging in astronomy
appears to be at its culmination point. The future is with new
imaging techniques such as lobster eye telescopes and multi-layered
super mirrors.
The list has been compiled by Jean in 't Zand (SRON) and Heiko Groeneveld (University of Tuebingen, Germany) and with the much appreciated help of many others.
Instrument1/ Platform |
PI/ country | Science2 |
Operat. period |
Detector/ E-range (keV) E-resolution |
Pattern3 Config4 Mask mat. |
FOV5 (degrees)/ Ang. Res. (arcmin) |
Det. Area (cm2) | No.6 | |
Instruments flown | |||||||||
(SL 602) rocket |
A. Willmore (U. B'ham) UK | GC | 69 |
Film 0.6-1.6 |
FZP Fe |
110 (HM) 7.6 | 205 | 1 | |
MPC rocket |
R. Blake (U. Chicago?) USA | Sun | 72 |
Film 0.6-1.6 |
ORA Ni/Fe |
0.25X0.25 (HM) 0.4 | 2 | 1 | |
SL 1501 rocket |
A. Willmore (U. B'ham) UK | GC | 76 |
PSPC 2.2-10.2 18%@6 keV |
URA Fe |
3.8X3.8 (ZR) 2.5X21 | 450 | 1 | |
TXC balloon |
D. Cardini (?) ? | TR | 81 |
PSPC 10-150 20%@60 keV |
URAID Pb |
95X97 (ZR) 300X240 | 468 | 1 | |
Burst camera / Gamma Cam balloon |
H. Horstman (TESRE) Italy | GRB | 83 |
NaI 30-300 20%@60 keV |
ORA50 Pb |
119 (FC) 120 | 1200 | 1 | |
HXT Tenma |
M. Tsunemi (ISAS) Japan | ASM | 83-84 |
PSPC 2-25 20%@6 keV |
URAID Fe/Cr |
40X40 (HM) 60 | 140 | 2 | |
DGT balloon |
M. McConnell (UNH) USA | Crab,Cyg | 84,88 |
BGO 160-9300 19%@662 keV |
URA R|C Pb |
15X23 (FC) 230 | 709 | 1 | |
XRT Spacelab 2 |
A. Willmore (U. B'ham) UK | AGN, GC | 85 |
PSPC 2-25 <20%@6 keV |
URA-p R|C Fe |
3.2X3.2 (HM) 3,12 | 1024 | 2 | |
COMIS-TTM Kvant-Mir |
A. Brinkman (SRON) Netherlands & UK |
transients gal. ridge GC | 87-99 |
PSPC 2-30 18%@6 keV |
URA-p R|S Fe/Au |
8X8 (HM) 2 | 655 | 1 | |
GRIP balloon |
T. Prince (CalTech) USA | Crab, GC |
88,89, 93,95 |
NaI 30-10000 23%@60 keV |
HURA H|C Pb/Sn |
14 (HM) 66 | 645 | 1 | |
(ZEBRA) balloon |
G. Villa (TesRe) Italy | AGN, Crab, GC | 89 |
NaI 150-10000 12%@661 keV |
URA W |
7X9 (FC) 60 | 2500 | 2 | |
MIXE balloon |
B. Ramsey (MSFC) USA | Crab,Cyg,AGN | 89,93,97 |
MicroStrip 25-100 6%@60 keV |
URA R|C W |
1.8X1.8 (HM) 6.9 | 784 | 1 | |
SIGMA Granat |
J. Paul (CNES) France | GC, XB | 89-99 |
NaI 30-1500 16%@60 keV |
URA-h R|C W |
11X11 (HM) 13 | 5000 | 1 | |
ART-P Granat |
R. Sunyaev (IKI) Russia | GC | 89-93 |
PSPC 2-30 22%@6 keV |
URA-h R|S Cu |
1.8X1.8 (HM) 6 | 655 | 4 | |
(Gamma-1) Gamma |
V. Akimov? (IKI) SU | GC, Sun | 90-92 |
Spark 35-1300 16%@60 keV |
URA1D W |
24 (HM) 20 | 1500 | 1 | |
(URA) STS 39 |
E. Fenimore (LANL) USA | GC, Cen X-3 | 91 |
HP-GSPC 2-70 15%@6 keV |
URA H|C W |
4.5 (HM) 4 | 1000 | 1 | |
EXITE-2 balloon |
J. Grindlay (Harvard) USA | GC | 93 |
NaI 20-600 18%@60 keV |
URA R|C Pb/Sn/Cu |
4.7X4.7 (HM) 23 | 1600 | 1 | |
TIMAX balloon |
J. Braga (INPE) Brazil | GC | 93 |
NaI 30-100 25%@60 keV |
URA R|M/A Pb/Cu |
12X8.5 (ZR) 120 | 400 | 1 | |
SAGE balloon |
G. Skinner (U B'ham) UK | Crab | 93 |
Ge 20-1500 <0.5% |
ORA Pb |
16X4 (FC) 60 | 20 | 1 | |
(WXM) HETE-1 |
E. Fenimore (LANL) & N. Kawai (RIKEN) USA & Japan | GRB |
96 (failed) |
PSPC 2-30 15%@6 keV |
ORA(33%) R|S/C|1 Al/Au |
90X90 (ZR) 40 | 400 | 2 | |
GRATIS balloon |
W. Craig (Col. U) USA | Cen,GC | 94,95 |
CsI 20-200 19% 60 keV |
URA1D Pb/Sn/Cu |
0.7 (HM) 2 | 21 | 36 | |
WFC SAX |
J. Heise (SRON) Netherlands |
GRB, X-ray bursts, XB | 96-02 |
PSPC 2-30 18%@6 keV |
triadic(33%) R|S Fe/Au |
20X20 (HM) 5 | 655 | 2 | |
LEGRI Minisat 1 |
V. Reglero (U. Valencia) Spain | Technology | 97-97 |
HgI2 10-100 13%@30 keV |
MURA R|C W |
24X24 (ZR) 150 | 100 | 1 | |
MASCO balloon |
T. Villela (INPE) Brazil | GC | 98 |
NaI 16%@60 keV |
MURA |
13 (HM) 14 | 1300 | 1 | |
Instruments flying | |||||||||
ASM RXTE |
H. Bradt (MIT) USA | XB,AGN,GRB | 95- |
PSPC 2-10 25%@6 keV |
ORA R|S|1 Al/Au |
6X90 (HM) 3X15 | 90 | 3 | |
WXM HETE-2 |
E. Fenimore (LANL) & N. Kawai (RIKEN) USA & Japan |
GRB, X-ray bursts | 00- |
PSPC 2-30 15%@6 keV |
ORA(33%) R|S/C|1 Al/Au |
90X90 (ZR) 40 | 400 | 2 | |
IBIS INTEGRAL |
P. Ubertini (IAS) Italy | XB,AGN | 02- |
CdTe/CsI 20-10000 8% @ 100 keV |
MURA R|C W |
8X8 (FC) 12 | 2500 | 1 | |
SPI INTEGRAL |
V. Schoenfelder (MPE) Germany |
Galactic diffuse emission | 02- |
Ge 20-8000 0.2% @ 1.33 MeV |
HURA H|C W (Tungsten) |
16 (FC) 120 | 500 | 1 | |
JEM-X INTEGRAL |
N. Lund (DSRI) Denmark | XB,AGN | 02- |
PSPC 3-35 13%@10 keV |
ORA(25%) H|C W |
4.8 (FC) 3 | 500 | 2 | |
BAT SWIFT |
N. Gehrels (GSFC) USA |
GRB, hard X-ray survey | 04- |
CdZnTe 15-150 6 keV throughout |
URA H|C |
120 17 | 5200 | 1 | |
Instruments to fly | |||||||||
Super Agile Agile |
E. Costa (IASF Roma) Italy | AGN+GRB | 06 |
Si microstrip 10-40 5 keV throughout |
URA-h 1 W (Tungsten; 50% open) |
107X68 (1-dim) 6 | 300 | 4 | |
SSM Astrosat |
RRI? India | XB | 08 |
PSPC 2-10 19% |
URA-h 1 material? (50% open) |
6X90 (63 els; drifting) 10 | 180 | 3 | |
CZTI Astrosat |
RRI? India | XB | 08 |
CdZnTe 10-100 5% at 10 keV |
URA-h ? material? (?% open) |
17x17 8 | 1000 | 1 | |
Instruments being studied | |||||||||
MART-LIME SXG |
P. Ubertini (IAS) Italy | XB | ? |
PSPC 5-150 <5% |
URA-h R|C ? |
5X5 (FC) 4-8 | 2000 | 1 | |
EXIST Balloon |
J. Grindlay (Harvard) USA | Survey |
CdZnTe 5-600 1% @ 100 keV |
20X6 (HM) 5 | 2500 | 4 |
1Instruments between parentheses experienced
difficulties in flight
2 XB - galactic X-ray binaries, GRB - gamma
ray burst phenomenon, ASM - all-sky monitoring, SSM - selected-sky
monitoring, AGN - active galactic nuclei, Technology - instrument
technology, GC - the galactic center
3 Pattern:
FZP = Fresnel Zone Plate, ORA = Optimized RAndom pattern,
URA = Uniformly Redundant Array, HURA = Hexagonal URA;
p = pseudo-noise subset, h = hadamard subset, tp = twin prime subset;
triadic = near-URA with 0.33 open fraction
4 Configuration: R = rectangular, H = hexagonal, C = cyclic, S = simple,
1 = 1-dimensional
5 HM=full width at half maximum,
ZR=full width at zero response, FC=full width of fully coded
field of view
6 Number of modules
Questions or suggestions? Please email jeanz@sron.nl.
Go to Coded Aperture Imaging main page
October 31, 2005