Reflectivity measurements in the vacuum ultraviolet wavelength range on technical surfaces for the Wolter I telescope on board the X-ray astronomy satellite ROSAT

The results of reflectivity measurements in the vacuum ultraviolet wavelength region (VUV) on technical surfaces are described which are used in the Wolter I-telescope on board the German X-ray astronomy satellite ROSAT.The materials investigated are the special iron-nickel alloy Invar and a carbon fibre compound (CFK).The centre connecting flange for the parabolic and hyperbolic mirror sections of the telescope is made of Invar. CFK is used for the thermal baffle in front of the telescope. It had to be checked whether the structure of the centre flange and the thermal baffle sufficiently suppress scattered ultraviolet radiation in order to avoid a substantial background level in the detectors which are located in the focal plane of the telescope. The detectors consist of two positional sensitive proportional counters (PSPC) with a spatial resolution of 0.5 arc min and an image converter with a resolution of a few arc sec. The detectors are mounted on a carrousel platform and are intended to be positioned alternatively in the focal plane.