Kepler photometer
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Kepler's focal plane sensors
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Kepler image with two points of interest outlined. Celestial north is towards the lower left corner.
The Kepler photometer is the main instrument on NASA's Kepler spacecraft.
It is a Schmidt telescope (95 cm clear aperture, 140 cm mirror) with an array of 42 2200x1024 CCDs in the focal plane; each CCD is flat, but they are mounted on a curved structure to account for the curved focal plane. The CCDs are not abutting, so the focal plane is not entirely covered, but since the mission's goal is to observe a sample of stars, this doesn't matter.
References
- Kepler Mission: Photometer and Spacecraft http://kepler.nasa.gov/sci/design/spacecraft.html
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