2008 Volume 56 Issue 658 Pages 536-542
The Hinode (Solar-B) was launched by M-V rocket on 22 September 2006 UT. The telemetry data of the Hinode X-ray Telescope (XRT) showed that the X-ray count rate detected with the XRT had decreased rapidly since the operational heaters on the XRT telescope tube were turned on. This is attributed to the fact that molecular contaminants accumulated onto the CCD with the temperature of −60ºC resulting in the degradation of the XRT sensitivity. We baked the CCD at the temperature of 35ºC in order to remove the contaminants from the CCD surface. However many contaminant spots appeared on the surface. We found that major contaminant source existed in the telescope tube, and identified the contaminants as diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) or DEHP-like organics. The mechanisms to yield the contaminant spots were discussed.
