Direct illumination LED calibration for telescope photometry

E. Barrelet (1) , C. Juramy (1)

1 LPNHE - Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Énergies

A calibration method for telescope photometry, based on the direct illumination of a telescope with a calibrated light source regrouping multiple LEDs, is proposed. Its purpose is to calibrate the instrument response. The main emphasis of the proposed method is the traceability of the calibration process and a continuous monitoring of the instrument in order to maintain a 0.2% accuracy over a period of years. Its specificity is to map finely the response of the telescope and its camera as a function of all light ray parameters. This feature is essential to implement a computer model of the instrument representing the variation of the overall light collection efficiency of each pixel for various filter configurations. We report on hardware developments done for SNDICE, the first application of this direct illumination calibration system which will be installed in Canada France Hawaii telescope (CFHT) for its leading supernova experiment (SNLS).

Mots clés: photometry; telescope; calibration; LED; supernovae

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]; Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

E. Barrelet, C. Juramy. Direct illumination LED calibration for telescope photometry. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 2008, 585, pp.93-101. ⟨10.1016/j.nima.2007.10.048⟩. ⟨in2p3-00188640⟩