Instrumentation

Graduate student Ryan Allured working on a prototype X-ray detector in Professor Kaaret's lab. It is part of the Bragg Reflection Polarimeter project, in which a student-built instrument will be flown on NASA Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer mission to study X-ray polarization of black holes and supernova remnants.	Graduate student Zack Prieskorn (left) working on a vacuum chamber in Professor Kaaret's lab, while graduate student Ryan Allured (right) looks on. The rectangular metal box on the near side of the chamber houses prototype imaging X-ray detectors, which are developed in Professor Kaaret's lab and tested in this chamber.	Graduate student Zach Prieskorn with electronics used for testing X-ray detectors in Professor Kaaret's lab. The detectors will be used to conduct a hard X-ray survey of the whole sky and conduct a census of accreting black holes in the universe.
Students with a sounding rocket that was recovered after launch from White Sands Missile Range, as part of Professor McEntaffer's rocket observation campaign. The payload included an X-ray spectrograph used to observe the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant.	Graduate student Tom Brantseg (right) in the lab of Professor McEntaffer (center), with engineer Ted Schultz (left). The ultra-high vacuum chamber, on the left, is used for calibration of X-ray optics and X-ray detectors to be used on space based instruments. The optics and detectors that are developed in Professor McEntaffer's group are for spectrally-resolved observations of soft X-ray emission originating from supernova remnants and low mass X-ray binaries.

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