JATIS thanks the reviewers who served the journal in 2022.

Common-mode choke inductors are useful tools for resolving grounding issues in large detector systems. Using inductive components on cryogenic pre-amplifier boards has so far been prevented by the poor low-temperature performance of common ferrite materials such as NiZn and MnZn. Recently developed nanocrystalline and amorphous ferrite materials promise improved performance up to the point where using magnetics at liquid nitrogen temperatures becomes feasible. This research applies the work of Yin et al. on characterizing ferrite materials by constructing and testing a common mode choke inductor for use on detector pre-amplifiers for the ELT first generation instruments.

Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph is an instrument currently under commissioning at the Cassegrain focus of the Very Large Telescope UT4. Its mission is to replace the suite of instruments NAOS-CONICA and SINFONI and push to the edge the capabilities of this 8-meter class telescope, by leveraging the adaptive optics module. The instrument has been designed for maximum lifetime and reliability and minimum downtime. We will present the instrument constraints and our approach to the reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) analysis. We identified the main actors in the system, then for each of them, we compiled a database of reliability parameters in order to build-up the reliability diagram, describing the failure sources. Starting from this information, we computed the system-wide reliability parameters and compared them with the requirements by the customer. Such a scheme is very general and may be taken as an example of RAM analysis for astronomical instrumentation; it may be also customized for the needs of other projects. In the end, we summarize the lessons learned.

Core collapse supernovae are thought to be one of the main sources in the galaxy of elements heavier than iron. Understanding the origin of the elements is thus tightly linked to our understanding of the explosion mechanism of supernovae and supernova nucleosynthesis. X-ray and gamma-ray observations of young supernova remnants, combined with improved theoretical modeling, have resulted in enormous improvements in our knowledge of these events. The isotope Ti44 is one of the most sensitive probes of the innermost regions of the core collapse engine, and its spatial and velocity distribution are key observables. Hard x-ray imaging spectroscopy with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has provided new insights into the structure of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A), establishing the convective nature of the supernova engine. However, many questions about the details of this engine remain. We present here the concept for a balloon-borne follow-up mission called A SuperConducting ENergetic x-ray Telescope (ASCENT). ASCENT uses transition edge sensor gamma-ray microcalorimeter detectors with a demonstrated 55-eV full-width half maximum energy resolution at 97 keV. This 8- to 16-fold improvement in energy resolution over NuSTAR will allow for high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy of the Ti44 emission. This will allow for a detailed reconstruction of gamma-ray line redshifts, widths, and shapes, allowing us to address questions such as, What is the source of the neutron star kicks? What is the dominant production pathway for Ti44? Is the engine of Cas A unique?

Resolve is a payload hosting an x-ray microcalorimeter detector operated at 50 mK in the x-ray imaging and spectroscopy mission. It is currently under development as part of an international collaboration and is planned to be launched in 2023. A primary technical concern is the microvibration interference in the sensitive microcalorimeter detector caused by the spacecraft bus components. We conducted a series of verification tests in 2021 to 2022 on the ground, the results of which are reported here. We defined the microvibration interface between the spacecraft and the Resolve instrument. In the instrument-level test, the flight-model hardware was tested against the interface level by injecting it with microvibrations and evaluating the instrument response using the 50 mK stage temperature stability, adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator magnet current consumption rate, and detector noise spectra. We found strong responses when injecting microvibration at ∼200, 380, and 610 Hz. In the former two cases, the beat between the injected frequency and cryocooler frequency harmonics were observed in the detector noise spectra. In the spacecraft-level test, the acceleration and instrument responses were measured with and without suspension of the entire spacecraft. The reaction wheels (RWs) and inertial reference units (IRUs), two major sources of microvibration among the bus components, were operated. In conclusion, the observed responses of Resolve are within the acceptable levels in the nominal operational range of the RWs and IRUs. There is no evidence that the resultant energy resolution degradation is beyond the current allocation of noise budget.

A five-mirror optical derotator system is used in the Accurate Infrared Magnetic System solar telescope by virtue of its polarization-free and superior real-time performance. The derotator system can compensate image rotation during tracking observation. The system consists of five flat mirrors with their normal vectors noncoplanar. Due to the complicated spatial positions of mirrors, it is challenging to align the system with high accuracy. We analyze parallelism and concentricity characteristic of derotator system by matrix transformation and propose a compensation alignment method from multivariables perturbation simulation. This method reduces degrees of freedom for alignment from 10 to 4, which greatly simplifies the installation and adjustment process. Based on the above simulation, the alignment experiment has been conducted successfully with the parallelism and concentricity meeting the requirements. Through theoretical analysis and experimental verification, the proposed method is reasonable and provides an efficient alignment solution for this kind of five-mirror optical derotator system.

The improved High-resolution Fast Imager (HiFI+) is a multiwavelength imaging filtergraph, which was commissioned at the GREGOR solar telescope at Observatorio del Teide, Izaña, Tenerife, Spain, in March 2022 – followed by science verification in April 2022, after which it entered routine observations. Three camera control computers with two synchronized sCMOS and CMOS cameras each provide near diffraction-limited imaging at high cadence in six wavelength bands (Ca ii H at 396.8 nm, G-band at 430.7 nm, blue continuum at 450.6 nm, narrow- and broad-band Hα at 656.3 nm, and TiO bandhead at 705.8 nm). This unique combination of photospheric and chromospheric images provides “tomographic” access to the dynamic Sun and complements spectropolarimetric observations at the GREGOR telescope. High image acquisition rates of 50 and 100 Hz facilitate image restoration, where time series of restored images have a typical cadence of 6 and 12 s, which is sufficient to resolve the dynamics of the solar photosphere and chromosphere. In principle, all imaging channels can be restored individually using the speckle masking technique or multiframe blind deconvolution (MFBD). However, images recorded strictly simultaneously in the narrow-/broad-band Hα and the G-band/blue continuum channels can be pairwise subjected to multiobject multiframe deconvolution (MOMFBD) expanding the science capabilities of HiFI+. For example, the narrow-band (FWHM = 60 nm) Halle Hα Lyot filter isolates the Hα line core, which facilitates matching chromospheric fibrils and filamentary structures to photospheric bright points. Likewise, dividing G-band by blue continuum images enhances small-scale brightenings, which are often related to small-scale magnetic fields so that their evolution can be tracked in time. A detailed description of the improved high-cadence, large-format imaging system is presented and its performance is assessed based on first-light observations.

The 4-metre multi-object spectroscopic telescope (4MOST) is a fiber-fed multi-object spectrograph for the VISTA telescope at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile. The goal of the 4MOST project is to create a general purpose and highly efficient spectroscopic survey facility for astronomers in the 4MOST consortium and the ESO community. The instrument itself will record 2436 simultaneous spectra over a ∼4.2 square deg field of view and consists of an optical wide-field corrector (WFC), a fiber positioner system based on a tilting spine design, and three spectrographs giving both high and low spectral dispersion. The WFC comprises of six lenses grouped into four elements, two of which are cemented doublets that act as an atmospheric dispersion corrector. The first lens element is 0.9 m in diameter while the diameter of the other elements is 0.65 m. For the instrument to meet its science goals, each lens was aligned to be well within ∼100 μm—a major challenge. This was achieved using contact metrology methods supplemented by pencil beam laser probes. In particular, an off-axis laser beam system has been implemented to test the optics’ alignment before and after shipment. This work details the alignment and assembly methods and presents the latest results on the achieved lens positioning and projected performance of the WFC.

Detector commanding, processing and readout of spaceborne instrumentation is often accomplished with application specific integrated circuits (ASICs). The ASIC designed for the nuclear spectroscopic telescope array (NuSTAR) mission enables future tiled CdZnTe (CZT) detector array readout for x-ray detectors, such as the high resolution energetic x-ray imager (HREXI). Modified NuSTAR ASIC (NuASIC) gain settings have been implemented for HREXI’s broader targeted imaging energy range (3 to 300 keV) compared with NuSTAR (2 to 79 keV), which may require updated NuASIC internal parameters for optimal energy resolution. To reach HREXI’s targeted low energy threshold, we have also enabled the NuASIC’s “charge pump mode,” which introduces an additional tuning parameter. We describe the mechanics of the NuASIC’s adjustable parameters and use our recently developed ASIC test stand to probe a “bare” NuASIC using its internal test pulser. We record the effects of parameter tuning on the device’s electronics noise and low energy threshold and report the optimal set of parameters for HREXI’s updated gain setting. We detail a semiautomated procedure to derive the optimal parameters for each of HREXI’s large area closely tiled NuASIC/CZT detectors to expedite instrument integration.

High-resolution maps of polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are in high demand, since the discovery of primordial B-modes in the polarization patterns would confirm the inflationary phase of the universe that would have taken place before the last scattering of the CMB at the recombination epoch. Transition edge sensors (TES) and microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKID) are the predominant detector technologies of cryogenic detector array-based CMB instruments that search for primordial B-modes. We propose another type of cryogenic detector to be used for CMB survey: a magnetic microbolometer (MMB) that is based on a paramagnetic temperature sensor. It is an adaption of state-of-the-art metallic magnetic calorimeters (MMCs) that are meanwhile a key technology for high resolution α, β, γ, and x-ray spectroscopy as well as the study of neutrino mass. The effort to adapt MMCs for CMB surveys is triggered by their lack of Johnson noise associated with the detector readout, the possibility of straightforward calibration and higher dynamic range given it possesses a broad and smooth responsivity dependence with temperature, and the absence of Joule dissipation which simplifies the thermal design. A brief proof of concept case study is analyzed, taking into account typical constraints in CMB measurements and reliable microfabrication processes, to assess the suitability of metallic magnetic sensors in CMB experiments. The results show that MMBs provide a promising technology for CMB polarization survey as their sensitivity can be tuned for background limited detection of the sky while simultaneously maintaining a low time response to avoid distortion of the point-source response of the telescope. As the sensor technology and its fabrication techniques are compatible with TES-based bolometric detector arrays, a change of detector technology would even come with very low cost.

We describe the development of flight electron multiplying charge coupled devices (EMCCDs) for the photon-counting camera system of a coronagraph instrument (CGI) to be flown on the 2.4-m Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Roman is a NASA flagship mission that will study dark energy and dark matter, and search for exoplanets with a planned launch in the mid-2020s. The CGI is intended to demonstrate technologies required for high-contrast imaging and spectroscopy of exoplanets, such as high-speed wavefront sensing and pointing control, adaptive optics with deformable mirrors, and ultralow noise signal detection with photon counting, visible-sensitive (350 to 950 nm) detectors. The camera system is at the heart of these demonstrations and is required to sense both faint and bright targets (10 ^{− 4} − 10⁷ counts-s ^{− 1}) adaptively at up to 1000 frames-s ^{− 1} to provide the necessary feedback to the instrument control loops. The system includes two identical cameras, one to demonstrate faint light scientific capability, and the other to provide high-speed real-time sensing of instrument pointing disturbances. Our program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California, United States) has evaluated the low-signal performance of radiation-damaged commercial EMCCD sensors and used those measurements as a basis for targeted radiation hardening modifications developed in partnership with the Open University (Milton Keynes, United Kingdom) and Teledyne-e2v (Chelmsford, United Kingdom). A pair of EMCCDs with test features was then developed and their low signal performance is reported here. The program has resulted in the development of a flight version of the EMCCD with low signal performance improved by more than a factor of three over the commercial one after exposure to 2.6 × 10⁹ protons-cm ^{− 2} (10 MeV equivalent). The flight EMCCD sensors are contributed by ESA through a contract with Teledyne-e2v (Chelmsford, United Kingdom). We will describe the program requirements, sensor design, test results and metrics used to evaluate photon counting performance.

The ALMA Observatory was inaugurated in 2013; after the first 8 years of successful operation, obsolescence emerged in different areas. One of the most critical areas is the control bus of the hardware devices located in antennas, which is based on a customized protocol built on top of the controller area network bus. Similarly, other observatories are facing the same problem. In collaboration with the Universidad de la Frontera, initial studies were performed to explore alternatives to provide state-of-the-art solutions for the next decades, and one of the candidate solutions can be based on the EtherCAT technology. Our study takes the ALMA control system as an example; it compares the current architecture with the new design that is not only compatible with the existing hardware devices of ALMA but also provides the foundation for the new subsystems associated with ALMA 2030 initiatives. The progress of a proof of concept is reported, which explores the possibility of embedding the existing ALMA monitor and control data structure into EtherCAT frames, using EtherCAT as the primary communication protocol to monitor and control hardware devices of ALMA telescope subsystems.

The capabilities of CubeSats have grown significantly since the first of these small satellites was launched in the early 2000s. These capabilities enable a wide range of mission profiles, with CubeSats emerging as viable platforms for certain space-based astronomical research applications. The Educational Irish Research Satellite (EIRSAT-1) is a CubeSat being developed as part of the European Space Agency’s Fly Your Satellite! program. In addition to its educational aims, the mission is driven by several scientific and technological goals, including goals related to a novel gamma-ray instrument for the detection of bright transient astrophysical sources, such as gamma-ray bursts. This work provides a detailed description of the software development life-cycle for EIRSAT-1, addressing the design, development and testing of robust flight software, aspects of payload interfacing, and risk mitigation. The described design-to-testing approach was implemented to establish, prior to launch, that EIRSAT-1 can perform its intended mission. Constraints and challenges typically experienced by CubeSat teams, which can impact the likelihood of mission success, are considered throughout this work, and lessons learned are discussed. The aim of this work is to highlight the advanced capabilities of CubeSats while providing a useful resource for teams implementing their own flight software.

This article presents an overview of the US National Gemini Office (US NGO) and its role within the International Gemini Observatory user community. Throughout the years, the US NGO charter changed considerably to accommodate the evolving needs of astronomers and the observatory. The current landscape of observational astronomy requires effective communication between stakeholders and reliable/accessible data reduction tools and products, which minimizes the time between data gathering and publication of scientific results. Because of that, the US NGO heavily invests in producing data reduction tutorials and cookbooks. Recently, the US NGO started engaging with the Gemini user community through social media, and the results have been encouraging, increasing the observatory’s visibility. The US NGO staff developed tools to assess whether the support provided to the user community is sufficient and effective, through website analytics and social media engagement numbers. These quantitative metrics serve as the baseline for internal reporting and directing efforts to new or current products. In the era of the National Science Foundation’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab), the US NGO is well-positioned to be the liaison between the US user base and the Gemini Observatory. Furthermore, collaborations within NOIRLab programs, such as the Astro Data Lab and the Time Allocation Committee, enhance the US NGO outreach to attract users and develop unique products. The future landscape laid out by the Astro 2020 report confirms the need to establish such synergies and provide more integrated user support services to the astronomical community at large.

Dome seeing is an often overlooked avenue for seeing improvement for a telescope. Because most existing telescope domes have not been characterized for turbulence, there is an opportunity to improve the overall seeing by minimizing the dome contribution, thereby optimizing scientific productivity and operations. A dome turbulence sensor has recorded data in the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) over the past year. The instrument consists of a collimated laser beam that propagates (and double passes) between the AAT’s primary mirror box and a flat mirror on the secondary strut. The angle-of-arrival fluctuations are used to derive a dome-seeing-proxy in arcsec. We found the dominant effects to be the temperature gradients and wind speed. Convection conditions are considerably more detrimental to the dome-seeing-proxy than thermal inversion conditions. Unlike other large telescopes, there is no discernible relationship between the dome-seeing-proxy and relative wind direction. Concerning telescope operations, it would be worth considering lowering the air-conditioning set point temperature to include a higher proportion of observations under thermal inversion. Nevertheless, this must be carefully weighed with the risk of condensation in the dome, a major concern for a site with frequent high relative humidity.

Interferometers (e.g., ALMA and NOEMA) allow us to obtain the detailed brightness distribution of astronomical sources in three dimensions (R.A., Dec., and frequency). However, the spatial correlation of the noise makes it difficult to evaluate the statistical uncertainty of the measured quantities and the statistical significance of the results obtained. The noise correlation properties in the interferometric image are fully characterized and easily measured by the noise autocorrelation function (ACF). We present the method for (1) estimating the statistical uncertainty due to the correlated noise in the spatially integrated flux and spectra directly, (2) simulating the correlated noise to perform a Monte Carlo simulation in image analyses, and (3) constructing the covariance matrix and chi-square χ² distribution to be used when fitting a model to an image with spatially correlated noise, based on the measured noise ACF. We demonstrate example applications to scientific data showing that ignoring noise correlation can lead to significant underestimation of statistical uncertainty of the results and false detections/interpretations.

We present the characterization of the charge-coupled device (CCD) system developed for the ARIES Devasthal faint object spectrograph (ADFOSC) instrument on the 3.6 m Devasthal optical telescope (DOT). We describe various experiments performed to tune the CCD controller parameters to obtain optimum performance in single and four-port readout modes. Different methodologies employed for characterizing the performance parameters of the CCD, including bias stability, noise, defects, linearity, and gain, are described here. The CCD has grade-0 characteristics at temperatures close to its nominal operating temperature of −120 ^° C. The overall system is linear with a regression coefficient of 0.9999, readout noise of six electrons, and a gain value close to unity. We demonstrate a method to calculate the dark signal using the gradient in the bias frames at lower temperatures. Using the optimized setting, we verify the performance of the CCD detector system on-sky using the ADFOSC instrument mounted on the 3.6 m DOT. Some science targets were observed to evaluate the detector’s performance in both imaging and spectroscopic modes.

We present an analysis of six independent on-sky datasets taken with the Keck-II/NIRC2 instrument. Using the off-axis point spread function (PSF) reconstruction software AIROPA, we extract stellar astrometry, photometry, and other fitting metrics to characterize the performance of this package. We test the effectiveness of AIROPA to reconstruct the PSF across the field of view in varying atmospheric conditions, number and location of PSF reference stars, stellar crowding, and telescope position angle (PA). We compare the astrometric precision and fitting residuals between a static PSF model and a spatially varying PSF model that incorporates instrumental aberrations and atmospheric turbulence during exposures. Most of the fitting residuals we measure show little to no improvement in the variable-PSF mode over the single-PSF mode. For one of the data sets, we find photometric performance is significantly improved (by ∼10 × ) by measuring the trend seen in photometry as a function of off-axis location. For nearly all other metrics we find comparable astrometric and photometric precision across both PSF modes, with a ∼13 % smaller astrometric uncertainty in variable-PSF mode in the best case. We largely confirm that the spatially variable PSF does not significantly improve the astrometric and other PSF fitting residuals over the static PSF for on-sky observations. We attribute this to unaccounted instrumental aberrations that are not characterized through afternoon adaptive optics (AO) bench calibrations.

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) for low-temperature detectors is a serious concern in many missions. We investigate the EMI caused by the spacecraft components to the x-ray microcalorimeter of the Resolve instrument onboard the x-ray imaging and spectroscopy mission, which is currently under development by an international collaboration and is planned to be launched in 2023. We focus on the EMI from (a) the low-frequency magnetic field generated by the magnetic torquers (MTQ) used for the spacecraft attitude control and (b) the radio-frequency (RF) electromagnetic field generated by the S and X band antennas used for communication between the spacecraft and the ground stations. We executed a series of ground tests both at the instrument and spacecraft levels using the flight-model hardware in 2021–2022 in a JAXA facility in Tsukuba. We also conducted electromagnetic simulations partially using the Fugaku high-performance computing facility. The MTQs were found to couple with the microcalorimeter, which we speculate through pick-ups of low-frequency magnetic field and further capacitive coupling. There is no evidence that the resultant energy resolution degradation is beyond the current allocation of noise budget. The RF communication system was found to leave no significant effect. We present the result of the tests and simulation in this article.

ProtoEXIST2 (P2) was a prototype imaging x-ray detector plane developed for wide-field time-domain astrophysics (TDA) in the 5 to 200 keV energy band. It was composed of an 8 × 8 array of 5 mm thick, 2 cm × 2 cm pixelated (32 × 32) CdZnTe (CZT) detectors with a 0.6-mm pitch that utilize the NuSTAR ASIC (NuASIC) for readout. During the initial detector development process leading up to postflight examination of the entire detector plane, distortions in expected pixel positions and shapes were observed in a significant fraction of the detectors. The High Resolution Energetic x-ray Imager (HREXI) calibration facility (HCF) was designed and commissioned to improve upon these early experiments and to rapidly map out and characterize pixel nonuniformities and defects within CZT detector planes at resolutions down to 50 μm. Using this facility, the subpixel level detector response of P2 was measured at 100 μm⁵ resolution and analyzed to extract and evaluate the area and profile of individual pixels, their morphology across the entire P2 detector plane for comparison with previous measurements and to provide additional characterization. In this article, we evaluate the imaging performance of a coded-aperture telescope using the observed pixel morphology for P2 detectors. This investigation will serve as an initial guide for detector selection in the development of HREXI detector planes, for the future implementation of the 4pi X-Ray Imaging Observatory (4piXIO)⁶ mission, which aims to provide simultaneous and continuous imaging of the full sky (4π sr) in the 3 to 200 keV energy band with ≃2 arcmin angular resolution and ≃10 arcsec source localization, as well as other, future coded-aperture instruments.

We develop and evaluate a new approach to phase estimation for observational astronomy that can be used for accurate point spread function reconstruction. Phase estimation is required where a terrestrial observatory uses an adaptive optics (AO) system to assist astronomers in acquiring sharp, high-contrast images of faint and distant objects. Our approach is to train a conditional adversarial artificial neural network architecture to predict phase using the wavefront sensor data from a closed-loop AO system. We present a detailed simulation study under different turbulent conditions, using the retrieved residual phase to obtain the point spread function of the simulated instrument. Compared to the state-of-the-art model-based approach in astronomy, our approach is not explicitly limited by modeling assumptions, e.g., independence between terms, such as bandwidth and anisoplanatism—and is conceptually simple and flexible. We use the open-source COMPASS tool for end-to-end simulations. On key quality metrics, specifically the Strehl ratio and Halo distribution in our application domain, our approach achieves results better than the model-based baseline.

Image displacement pixel processing for laser guide star (LGS) Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensors (WFS) is often based upon a center of gravity with thresholding [thresholded CoG (tCoG)] algorithm. This method yields a nearly linear response to the sub-aperture wavefront gradient, but suffers from zero-point biases due to sodium profile variability and the resulting changes in the shape of the LGS sub-aperture images. This effect interacts with additional biases due to the image truncation caused by the limited field of view of the WFS sub-apertures, as well as from WFS non-common path aberration (NCPA). Natural guide star (NGS) truth wavefront sensors (TWFS) have been proposed to correct for the resulting aberrations in the reconstructed wave-front, and multiple such TWFS would be required to control anisoplanatism effects when there are multiple LGS. We describe a novel algorithm that estimates the sodium profile from time averaged sub-aperture images of one or multiple LGS using a system imaging model. This estimate can then be used to correct for the zero-point bias by adjusting the tCoG reference vector. This eliminates the need for an NGS TWFS to detect sodium profile induced aberrations, and a single TWFS with faint NGS would then be sufficient to monitor any variations in NCPA if needed, which greatly improves the sky coverage. The reconstructed sodium profile can also be used to build constrained matched filters, a noise-optimal alternative to tCoG that requires accurate knowledge of the sub-aperture LGS images and their spatial derivatives (and has yet to be demonstrated on sky). This new sodium profile reconstruction algorithm consequently eliminates the need for dithering LGS spots on sky to determine these derivatives, which greatly simplifies the implementation of matched filtering and also provides better performance. All of the necessary sodium profile estimation, bias computations, and matched filter optimizations can be done with a modern CPU (e.g., Intel Core i7-11700) at around a 0.1-Hz update rate as a background process for the real time controller. Our simulations of this new method are for center launch LGS, but we are confident the profile estimation algorithm will work equally well if not better for side launch LGS, even when there is increased image truncation.