PIA11983: Where Kepler Sees
 Mission:  Kepler
 Spacecraft:  Kepler Spacecraft
 Instrument:  Photometer 
 Product Size:  2385 x 2974 pixels (w x h)
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA11983.tif (21.3 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA11983.jpg (573 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This star chart illustrates the large patch of sky that NASA's Kepler mission will stare at for the duration of its three-and-a-half-year lifetime. The planet hunter's full field of view occupies 100 square degrees of our Milky Way galaxy, in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.

Kepler's focal plane, or the area where starlight is focused, is depicted on the star chart as a series of 42 vertical and horizontal rectangles. These rectangles represent the 95-megapixel camera's 42 charge-coupled devices, or CCDs. Scientists selected the orientation of the focal plane's field of view to avoid the region's brightest stars, which are shown as the largest black dots. Some of these bright stars can be seen falling in between the CCD modules, in areas that are not imaged. This was done so that the brightest stars will not saturate large portions of the detectors. Saturation causes signals from the bright stars to spill, or "bloom," into nearby planet-hunting territory.

Image Credit:
Software Bisque

Image Addition Date:
2009-04-16