Electrographic instrumentation for ultraviolet imaging and spectrography

The latest results in the NRL program of far-UV electrographic camera development, and application of these cameras to astrophysical and upper-atmospheric investigations, are presented. A new large electrographic Schmidt camera, of 15 cm aperture and f/2 focal ratio, has been successfully used in two sounding rocket flights, one for direct imagery in the 1230-2000 A wavelength range and the second for objective spectrography in the 950-2000 A range, of stars and nebulae in the Cygnus region of the sky. The camera has an 11 deg field of view and better than 30 arcsec resolution (2 A spectral resolution with 600 line/mm objective grating). A nebular spectrograph, based on a microchannel-intensified electrographic Schmidt camera, is the payload of a May 1979 rocket flight. It will reach emission line features as faint as 5 Rayleighs in 100 second exposures in the 1050-2000 A range, with 5 A spectral resolution.