A new fast Silicon photomultiplier Photometer

Presenter: roberto nesci

We have built a prototype of fast astronomical photometer, based on SiPM detectors, commercially available from the Hamamatsu firm. Our system is composed by three MPPC modules, with an active area of 1 mm2. One detector is used to observe the target, one for the sky level and one for a reference star. The light from the telescope reachs each detector through a plastic optical fiber (600 micron diameter). To reduce the electronic noise the detectors are kept inside a commercial freezer at about -8 °C. The acquisition rate is 0.55 ms with an electronic chain developed at La Sapienza University. We observed the Crab Pulsar at the 152 cm Loiano Telescope, reconstructing the pulse shape at a S/N=23 with an integration time of 3300s.

F. Meddi,
F. Ambrosino,
C. Rossi,
R. Nesci,
S. Sclavi,
A. Ruggieri,
S. Sestito,
I. Bruni,
R. Gualandi