The flight test of a grazing incidence relay optics telescope for solar X-ray astronomy utilizing a thinned, back-illuminated CCD detector

The new AS&E Ultrahigh Resolution Soft X-ray Solar Research Rocket Payload has been successfully flown twice on Black Brant IX Sounding Rockets from White Sands Missile Range. These flights, conducted on 15 August 1987 and 11 December 1987, provided the first test of the new payload which consists of 3.8X magnifying hyperboloid-hyperboloid grazing incidence relay optic used in conjunction with an existing Wolter-I primary mirror. An RCA SID 500 series CCD detector was utilized in a thinned, back-illuminated configuration for recording the images. The 5.4 m effective focal length of the compound optics system resulted in a plate scale of 1 arc second per pixel which is comparable to the inherent resolution of the primary mirror. These flights represent the first use in X-ray astronomy of either of these two new technologies. These observations are presented with comparison to laboratory measurements and theoretical expectations of the instrument performance.