In-Flight Calibration of the Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer

Herman L. Marshall, Daniel Dewey, Kazunori Ishibashi

Published 2003-09-03Version 1

We present results from in-flight calibration of the High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer (HETGS) on the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Basic grating assembly parameters such as orientation and average grating period were measured using emission line sources. These sources were also used to determine the locations of individual CCDs within the flight detector. The line response function (LRF) was modeled in detail using an instrument simulator based on pre-flight measurements of the grating alignments and periods. These LRF predictions agree very well with in-flight observations of sources with narrow emission lines. Using bright continuum sources, we test the consistency of the detector quantum efficiencies by comparing positive orders to negative orders.