Hard X-ray all-sky imaging with BATSE/CGRO

The large Area Detectors (LADs) of the BATSE experiment aboard the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory have been used recently as the first hard X-ray all-sky imager at energies between 20 keV and 300 keV. The Earth occultation process is formulated in terms of a curved Radon transform convoluted by a step transform in a selected field of view (FOV) ranging from 5°×5° to 40°×40°. The Maximum Entropy Method is then used to reconstruct an image in the hard X-ray sky. Multiple images of different regions of the sky can be produced simultaneously. A source location accuracy of 0.1° for strong sources and a sensitivity limit of 100 mCrab have been achieved in an one-day integration period.Invited Paper on Imaging in High Energy Astronomy, Sept., 1994, Capri, Italyalso Universities Space Research Association