Drift Scanning from Ground and in Space

The drift scanning technique offers, in principle, a simple and efficientmethod for imaging wide regions of the sky with intrinsic high astrometricaccuracy. Its performance is analyzed in two distinct environments, namelyfrom a small class ground based telescope and a spaceborne interferometer. Inparticular, the study is referred to the proposed ESA cornerstone missionGAIA (Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics).The constant clock rate of a CCD, due to the declination dependentsidereal speed variation, results in a systematic image smearing, whichlimits the positional accuracy. Moreover, the readout timing accuracyprovides an additional random noise corresponding to a drift speed jitter.Stability requirements on the order of 10-6 or better have to be fulfilledfor the space option.Both effects can be addressed by proper system design; provisionalimplementation strategies are discussed for both applications.