ACS Detectors
The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) employs two fundamentally different types of detectors: CCDs for use from the near-UV to the near-IR, and a Multi-Anode Microchannel Array detector known as a MAMA for use in the ultraviolet. The CCD and the MAMA detectors are used in different ways and impose their own unique limitations on the feasibility of observations performed with them.
The ACS is a third generation HST instrument and includes three channels:
- a Wide Field Channel (WFC), with a field of view of 202x202 square arcsec covering the range from 3500 Å to 11000 Å and a plate-scale of 0.05 arcsec/pixel;
- a High Resolution Channel (HRC), with a field of view of 29x26 square arcsec covering the range from 1700 Å to 11000 Å and a plate-scale of 0.027 arcsec/pixel;
- a Solar Blind Channel (SBC), with a field of view of 34.6x30.5 arcsec field of view, spanning the range from 1150 Å to 1700 Å and a plate-scale of 0.032 arcsec/pixel.
Basic detector information is covered in the HST Data Handbook for ACS, Section 1.1.1. A more detailed and updated introduction to all the detectors for the ACS can be found in the Cycle 19 ACS Instrument Handbook Section 3.3.1 and in thorough detail throughout Chapter 4. The instrument handbook describes the characterization of the instrument fully and provides information on how to maximize its scientific output.
CCD Types of Noise include but are not limited to: