Initial performance of the EXITE2 imaging phoswich detector/telescope for hard X-ray astronomy

The authors have developed, tested, and flown a large-area imaging phoswich detector/telescope for hard X-ray astronomy. This second-generation Energetic X-ray Imaging Telescope Experiment (EXITE) is designed to detect and image cosmic X-ray sources in the 20-600 keV energy range from a high-altitude balloon. Imaging is accomplished via the coded-aperture technique. Laboratory tests have shown that the detector achieves 14% (FWHM) energy resolution and /spl sim/10 mm (FWHM) spatial resolution at 60 keV, and that the pulse-shape discrimination circuit effectively distinguishes between NaI(Tl) and CsI(Na) events from /spl sim/40-400 keV. The first flight of the instrument was from Palestine, Texas, on 13-14 June 1993. The authors present details of the laboratory performance of the system and some flight results.<
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