TAUVEX Guest Investigator Program

Sky Visibility Information

Mounted on a rotating platform, TAUVEX can observe the whole sky. However, a lot of `power' comes with strong constraints (just like for jinni Jafar in Alladin)—necessity to avoid Sun at 90° and restriction to a scanning mode—results in a reduction of total visibility. In addition, TAUVEX has to avoid a significant straylight on its detectors that may come from the scattering of a, mainly, sunlight off the satellite body. All this conspires to limit the total observing time for upto 10–12 hours a day and to a seasonal choice of observing Cycles.

Solar straylight analysis, presented in Observational Windows and Limiting Magnitude Maps document, enables us to estimate limiting magnitudes for TAUVEX observations in various bandpasses. The limiting magnitude depends on the background straylight and, therefore, on the orbital phase.

 
 

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