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GP-B Post-Flight Analysis—Final Report - Gravity Probe B - Stanford ...

GP-B Post-Flight Analysis—Final Report - Gravity Probe B - Stanford ...

GP-B Post-Flight Analysis—Final Report - Gravity Probe B - Stanford ...

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14.1.6.2 Normalized PointingThe telescope detector signals were converted from analog to digital values by the Telescope ReadoutElectronics (TRE) box, and these digital values were normalized (mapped) onto a range of -1 to +1. In thisnormalized range, a value of 0 meant that the telescope was centered for the given axis, whereas a value of +1indicated that all of the light was falling on one of the detectors and a value of -1 indicated that all of the lightwas falling on the other detector.Figure 14-15. Normalized pointing values for the <strong>GP</strong>-B telescopeIn actuality, the light beam for each axis was distributed in a bell-shaped curve along this scale. When thetelescope was centered, the peak of the bell curve was located over the 0 point, indicating that half the light wasfalling on each detector. If the telescope moved off center, the entire curve shifted towards the +1 or -1direction. You can think of this as a teeter-totter of light values, with the 0 value indicating that the light wasbalanced, as shown in Figure 14-16.Figure 14-16. Centering the telescope's light distribution<strong>Gravity</strong> <strong>Probe</strong> B — <strong>Post</strong> <strong>Flight</strong> Analysis • Final <strong>Report</strong> March 2007 415

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