Selecting pixels for Kepler downlink

Stephen T. Bryson; Jon M. Jenkins; Todd C. Klaus; Miles T. Cote; Elisa V. Quintana; Jennifer R. Hall; Khadeejah Ibrahim; Hema Chandrasekaran; Douglas A. Caldwell; Jeffrey E. Van Cleve; Michael R. Haas

doi:10.1117/12.857625

19 July 2010 Selecting pixels for Kepler downlink

Stephen T. Bryson, Jon M. Jenkins, Todd C. Klaus, Miles T. Cote, Elisa V. Quintana, Jennifer R. Hall, Khadeejah Ibrahim, Hema Chandrasekaran, Douglas A. Caldwell, Jeffrey E. Van Cleve, Michael R. Haas

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7740, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy; 77401D (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857625
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The Kepler mission monitors ~ 165, 000 stellar targets using 42 2200 × 1024 pixel CCDs. Onboard storage and bandwidth constraints prevent the storage and downlink of all 96 million pixels per 30-minute cadence, so the Kepler spacecraft downlinks a specified collection of pixels for each target. These pixels are selected by considering the object brightness, background and the signal-to-noise in each pixel, and maximizing the signal-to- noise ratio of the target. This paper describes pixel selection, creation of spacecraft apertures that efficiently capture selected pixels, and aperture assignment to a target. Engineering apertures, short-cadence targets and custom-specified shapes are discussed.

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Stephen T. Bryson, Jon M. Jenkins, Todd C. Klaus, Miles T. Cote, Elisa V. Quintana, Jennifer R. Hall, Khadeejah Ibrahim, Hema Chandrasekaran, Douglas A. Caldwell, Jeffrey E. Van Cleve, and Michael R. Haas "Selecting pixels for Kepler downlink", Proc. SPIE 7740, Software and Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy, 77401D (19 July 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857625

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