Focal Plane Design for ESA's Eddington Planet-Finding Mission

摘要

The ESA Eddington mission is designed to perform the dual science tasks of asteroseisrnology and exo-planet finding. The ambitious science goals can be met by a single instrument that utilises high precision and long duration photometry, that in the planet-finding phase leads the ability to detect planetary transits from targets in the magnitude range 11 -15. We describe the baseline design of the Eddington focal plane cameras, including the performance features of 62V CCD42-CO devices that are the proto-type detectors. Important trade-offs and system constraints are noted and issues that affect the scientific output such as radiation damage and calibration aspects, and are briefly reviewed.