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    The high energy Universe at ultra-high resolution: the power and promise of X-ray interferometry
    (Dordrecht [u.a.] : Springer Science + Business Media B.V, 2021) Uttley, Phil; Hartog, Roland den; Bambi, Cosimo; Barret, Didier; Bianchi, Stefano; Bursa, Michal; Cappi, Massimo; Casella, Piergiorgio; Cash, Webster; Costantini, Elisa; Dauser, Thomas; Trigo, Maria Diaz; Gendreau, Keith; Grinberg, Victoria; Herder, Jan-Willem den; Ingram, Adam; Kara, Erin; Markoff, Sera; Mingo, Beatriz; Panessa, Francesca; Poppenhäger, Katja; Różańska, Agata; Svoboda, Jiri; Wijers, Ralph; Willingale, Richard; Wilms, Jörn; Wise, Michael
    We propose the development of X-ray interferometry (XRI), to reveal the Universe at high energies with ultra-high spatial resolution. With baselines which can be accommodated on a single spacecraft, XRI can reach 100 μ as resolution at 10 Å (1.2 keV) and 20 μ as at 2 Å (6 keV), enabling imaging and imaging-spectroscopy of (for example) X-ray coronae of nearby accreting supermassive black holes (SMBH) and the SMBH ‘shadow’; SMBH accretion flows and outflows; X-ray binary winds and orbits; stellar coronae within ∼100 pc and many exoplanets which transit across them. For sufficiently luminous sources XRI will resolve sub-pc scales across the entire observable Universe, revealing accreting binary SMBHs and enabling trigonometric measurements of the Hubble constant with X-ray light echoes from quasars or explosive transients. A multi-spacecraft ‘constellation’ interferometer would resolve well below 1 μ as, enabling SMBH event horizons to be resolved in many active galaxies and the detailed study of the effects of strong field gravity on the dynamics and emission from accreting gas close to the black hole.
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    Visible-NIR ‘point’ spectroscopy in postharvest fruit and vegetable assessment: The science behind three decades of commercial use
    (Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier Science, 2020) Walsh, Kerry B.; Blasco, José; Zude-Sasse, Manuela; Sun, Xudong
    The application of visible (Vis; 400–750 nm) and near infrared red (NIR; 750–2500 nm) region spectroscopy to assess fruit and vegetables is reviewed in context of ‘point’ spectroscopy, as opposed to multi- or hyperspectral imaging. Vis spectroscopy targets colour assessment and pigment analysis, while NIR spectroscopy has been applied to assessment of macro constituents (principally water) in fresh produce in commercial practice, and a wide range of attributes in the scientific literature. This review focusses to key issues relevant to the widespread implementation of Vis-NIR technology in the fruit sector. A background to the concepts and technology involved in the use of Vis-NIR spectroscopy is provided and instrumentation for in-field and in-line applications, which has been available for two and three decades, respectively, is described. A review of scientific effort is made for the period 2015 - February 2020, in terms of the application areas, instrumentation, chemometric methods and validation procedures, and this work is critiqued through comparison to techniques in commercial use, with focus to wavelength region, optical geometry, experimental design, and validation procedures. Recommendations for future research activity in this area are made, e.g., application development with consideration of the distribution of the attribute of interest in the product and the matching of optically sampled and reference method sampled volume; instrumentation comparisons with consideration of repeatability, optimum optical geometry and wavelength range). Recommendations are also made for reporting requirements, viz. description of the application, the reference method, the composition of calibration and test populations, chemometric reporting and benchmarking to a known instrument/method, with the aim of maximising useful conclusions from the extensive work being done around the world.
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    The Wave-Front Correction System for the Sunrise Balloon-Borne Solar Observatory
    (Dordrecht [u.a.] : Springer Science + Business Media, 2010) Berkefeld, T.; Schmidt, W.; Soltau, D.; Bell, A.; Doerr, H.P.; Feger, B.; Friedlein, R.; Gerber, K.; Heidecke, F.; Kentischer, T.; von der Lühe, O.; Sigwarth, M.; Wälde, E.; Barthol, P.; Deutsch, W.; Gandorfer, A.; Germerott, D.; Grauf, B.; Meller, R.; Álvarez-Herrero, A.; Knölker, M.; Pillet, V.M.; Solanki, S.K.; Title, A.M.
    This paper describes the wave-front correction system developed for the Sunrise balloon telescope, and it provides information about its in-flight performance. For the correction of low-order aberrations, a Correlating Wave-Front Sensor (CWS) was used. It consisted of a six-element Shack - Hartmann wave-front sensor (WFS), a fast tip-tilt mirror for the compensation of image motion, and an active telescope secondary mirror for focus correction. The CWS delivered a stabilized image with a precision of 0.04 arcsec (rms), whenever the coarse pointing was better than ± 45 arcsec peak-to-peak. The automatic focus adjustment maintained a focus stability of 0.01 waves in the focal plane of the CWS. During the 5.5 day flight, good image quality and stability were achieved during 33 hours, containing 45 sequences, which lasted between 10 and 45 min. © 2010 The Author(s).