Abstract
Understanding of the basic characteristics of an astronomical instrument is a prerequisite to obtaining reliable data from the instrument. We have analyzed more than 1,000 calibration images from the Fairchild 486 CCD (hereafter the Maidanak 4k CCD system) attached to the AZT-22 1.5m telescope at Maidanak Astronomical Observatory in Uzbekistan. The Maidanak 4k CCD system supports three readout modes through 1, 2, or 4 amplifiers. In most cases observers use 4-amplifier readout mode to save time. We have tested the stability and seasonal variation of zero levels and confirm that two quadrants of the images (Amp 1 & 2) show no appreciable seasonal variation. but the other two quadrants (Amp 3 & Amp 4) show an evident seasonal variation in the bias level. The Cryo Tiger, the cooling system used at the Maidanak 4k CCD system, maintains the CCD temperature at -108'E, and effectively suppresses the dark electrons. The mean value versus the variance plot of the flat images does not show the expected relation for an ideal Poisson noise distribution and this is attributed to the large variation in quantum efficiency between different pixels. In addition, we confirm that there is no appreciable difference in gain between readout amplifiers, but there is a large variation in quantum efficiency across CCD chip especially in U. Due to the finite length of shutter opening and closing time, the effective exposure time varies across the science images. We introduce two parameters to quantify the effect of this uneven illumination and present a method to remove these effects. We also present a method to remove the interference patterns appearing in the images obtained with longer wavelength filters and investigate the spatial variation of the point spread function.