In-orbit Vignetting Calibrations of XMM-Newton Telescopes

Abstract

We describe measurements of the mirror vignetting in the XMM-Newton Observatory made in-orbit, using observations of SNR G21.5-09 and SNR 3C58 with the EPIC imaging cameras. The instrument features that complicate these measurements are briefly described. We show the spatial and energy dependences of measured vignetting, outlining assumptions made in deriving the eventual agreement between simulation and measurement. Alternate methods to confirm these are described, including an assessment of source elongation with off-axis angle, the surface brightness distribution of the diffuse X-ray background, and the consistency of Coma cluster emission at different position angles. A synthesis of these measurements leads to a change in the XMM calibration data base, for the optical axis of two of the three telescopes, by in excess of 1 arcminute. This has a small but measureable effect on the assumed spectral responses of the cameras for on-axis targets.

Accepted by Experimental Astronomy. 26 pages, 18 figures

References in corpus (5)

• The European Photon Imaging Camera on XMM-Newton: The MOS Cameras
• X-ray background measurements with XMM-Newton EPIC
• The XMM-Newton Serendipitous Survey I. The role of XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre
• The X-ray nebula of the filled center supernova remnant 3C58 and its interaction with the environment
• In-orbit performance of the XMM-Newton X-ray telescopes: images and spectra

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