Hard X-ray Telescope
Schematic of the Constellation-X Hard X-ray Telescope instrumentation.
CZT detector array.
The Constellation-X Hard X-ray Telescope (HXT) extends the Constellation-X bandpass to 40 keV. The telescope will consist of grazing incidence nested shell mirrors (similar in concept to the Soft X-ray Telescope) that focus X-rays onto an imaging spectrometer located on the focal plane. There are currently two mirror implementations under study: one using a single HXT mirror and detector, the second using two telescopes and detectors.
The reference focal plane HXT detector is a cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) solid state detector. These detectors have excellent energy resolution for the energy range of interest (6-40 keV), can be made position sensitive, and have flown successfully on satellite missions (most recently Swift).
HEFT nested glass mirrors (left) and diagram of Hard X-ray full shell Ni mirror design (right).
