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ROSAT : The Roentgen Satellite
he Roentgen Satellite, ROSAT, a Germany/US/UK
collaboration, was launched on June 1, 1990 and operated for almost
9 years. The first 6 months of the mission were dedicated to the all
sky-survey (using the Position Sensitive Proportional Counter detector),
followed by the pointed phase.
The survey obtained by ROSAT was the first X-ray and XUV all-sky survey
using an imaging telescope with an X-ray sensitivity of
about a factor of 1000 better than that of UHURU.
During the pointed phase ROSAT made deep observations of a wide variety of
objects.
Mission Characteristics
Lifetime : 1 June 1990 - 12 February 1999
Energy Range : X-ray 0.1 - 2.5 keV , EUV 62-206 eV
Special Feature : All sky-survey in the soft X-ray band
Payload :
- An X-ray telescope used in conjunction with one
of the following instruments (0.1-2.5 keV)
- Position Sensitive Proportional Counter
(PSPC) 2 units : detector B, used for the pointed phase,
& detector C ,used for the survey
FOV 2 ° diameter
eff area 240 cm2 at 1 keV
energy resolution of
deltaE/E=0.43 (E/0.93)-0.5
- High Resolution Imager (HRI)
FOV 38 ' square ; eff area 80 cm2 at 1 keV
~ 2 arcsec spatial resolution (FWHM)
- A Wide Field Camera with its own mirror system
(62-206 eV)
FOV 5 ° diameter
Science Highlights:
- X-ray all-sky survey catalog, more than 150000 objects
- XUV all-sky survey catalog (479 objects)
- Source catalogs from the pointed phase (PSPC and HRI)
containing ~ 100000 serendipitous sources
- Detailed morphology of supernova remnants and clusters of galaxies.
- Detection of shadowing of diffuse X-ray emission by molecular clouds.
- Detection (Finally!) of pulsations from Geminga.
- Detection of isolated neutron stars.
- Discovery of X-ray emission from comets.
- Observation of X-ray emission from the collision of
Comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter.
Archive : Catalogs, Spectra, Lightcurves, Images and Raw data
[ROSAT Guest Observer Facility] (http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/rosat/rosgof.html)
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