Inter-Calibration of Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes with UAV-based Airborne Calibration System

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that UAV-based calibration can effectively inter-calibrate atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes and constrain their pointing accuracy, offering a promising new method for telescope calibration in gamma-ray astronomy.

Contribution

First-generation UAV calibration prototype successfully inter-calibrated H.E.S.S. telescopes and constrained pointing accuracy, showing potential for future gamma-ray telescope calibration.

Findings

UAV calibration consistent with muon calibration within 5.4-5.8%.

Pointing accuracy constrained to tens of arc-seconds.

First prototype demonstrates viability of UAV-based calibration.

Abstract

The recent advances in the flight capability of remotely piloted aerial vehicles (here after referred to as UAVs) have afforded the astronomical community the possibility of a new telescope calibration technique: UAV-based calibration. Building upon a feasibility study which characterised the potential that a UAV-based calibration system has for the future Cherenkov Telescope Array, we created a first-generation UAV-calibration prototype and undertook a field-campaign of inter-calibrating the sensitivity of the H.E.S.S. telescope array with two successful calibration flights. In this paper we report the key results of our first test campaign: firstly, by comparing the intensity of the UAV-calibration events, as recorded by the individual HESS-I cameras, we find that a UAV-based inter-calibration is consistent with the standard muon inter-calibration technique at the level of \SI{5.4}{\%} and \SI{5.8}{\%} for the two individual UAV-calibration runs. Secondly, by comparing the position of the UAV-calibration signal on the camera focal plane, for a variety of telescope pointing models, we were able to constrain the pointing accuracy of the HESS-I telescopes at the tens of arc-second accuracy level. This is consistent with the pointing accuracy derived from other pointing calibration methods. Importantly both the inter-calibration and pointing accuracy results were achieved with a first-generation UAV-calibration prototype, which eludes to the potential of the technique and highlights that a UAV-based system is a viable calibration technique for current and future ground-based $\gamma$-ray telescope arrays.