An Ultraviolet imager to study bright UV sources

TL;DR

This paper presents the design and development of a compact, lightweight ultraviolet imager for studying bright UV sources and transients, suitable for deployment on various platforms including lunar missions.

Contribution

It introduces a cost-effective, all spherical optical design for a compact UV telescope with detailed development and implementation insights.

Findings

Design successfully meets size and weight constraints

Optical system is less complex and cost-effective

Instrument is capable of observing bright UV sources and transients

Abstract

We have designed and developed a compact ultraviolet imaging payload to fly on a range of possible platforms such as high altitude balloon experiments, cubesats, space missions, etc. The primary science goals are to study the bright UV sources (mag < 10) and also to look for transients in the Near UV (200 - 300 nm) domain. Our first choice is to place this instrument on a spacecraft going to the Moon as part of the Indian entry into Google lunar X-Prize competition. The major constraints for the instrument are, it should be lightweight (< 2Kg), compact (length < 50cm) and cost effective. The instrument is an 80 mm diameter Cassegrain telescope with a field of view of around half a degree designated for UV imaging. In this paper we will discuss about the various science cases that can be performed by having observations with the instrument on different platforms. We will also describe the design, development and the current state of implementation of the instrument. This includes opto-mechanical and electrical design of the instrument. We have adopted an all spherical optical design which would make the system less complex to realize and a cost effective solution compared to other telescope configuration. The structural design has been chosen in such a way that it will ensure that the instrument could withstand all the launch load vibrations. An FPGA based electronics board is used for the data acquisition, processing and CCD control. We will also briefly discuss about the hardware implementation of the detector interface and algorithms for the detector readout and data processing.