Mirror Baffle Core, X-ray Telescope

This is the interior light baffle core from the prototype of the first imaging X-ray telescope that successfully obtained an X-ray image of the Sun. The instrument utilizes grazing incidence optics to project an image of the source onto photographic film. The increased sensitivity of this system over earlier X-ray telescopes allowed shorter exposure times and resulted in increased resolution. Thicker filters could be incorporated into the telescope to determine the energy distribution of X-ray sources. The telescope based on this prototype was flown on an Aerobee rocket from the White Sands Missile Range on March 17, 1965. The images obtained from that flight were compared with optical images to correlate regions of solar activity with X-ray emission. The instrument was built at American Science and Engineering Inc. by Riccardo Giacconi and his colleagues, and was part of the suite of early experiments that earned Giacconi the Nobel Prize.

It was donated to NASM in August 2000 by Riccardo and Mirella Giacconi.