Kepler photometer
Appearance
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Keplerspacecraft-FocalPlane-cutout.svg/220px-Keplerspacecraft-FocalPlane-cutout.svg.png)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/329161main_fullFFIHot300.png/220px-329161main_fullFFIHot300.png)
The Kepler photometer is the main instrument on NASA's Kepler space telescope.
It is a Schmidt telescope (95 cm clear aperture, 140 cm mirror) with an array of 42 2200x1024 CCDs in the focal plane; each CCD is flat, but they are mounted on a curved structure to account for the curved focal plane. The CCDs are not abutting, so the focal plane is not entirely covered, but since the mission's goal is to observe a sample of stars, this doesn't matter.
References
[edit]- Kepler Mission: Photometer and Spacecraft [1]