Calibrating Data from the Hinode/X-Ray Telescope and Associated Uncertainties

The X-Ray Telescope (XRT) onboard the Hinode satellite, launched 23 September 2006 by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is a joint mission between Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom to study the solar corona. In particular XRT was designed to study solar plasmas with temperatures between 1 and 10 MK with $\approx1''$ pixels ($\approx2''$ resolution). Prior to analysis, the data product from this instrument must be properly calibrated and data values quantified in order to assess accurately the information contained within. We present here the standard methods of calibration for these data. The calibration is performed on an empirical basis which uses the least complicated correction that accurately describes the data while suppressing spurious features. By analyzing the uncertainties remaining in the data after calibration, we conclude that the procedure is successful, as the remaining uncertainty after calibration is dominated by photon noise. This calibration software is available in the Solar Soft software library.
26 pages, 16 figures, Accepted for publication in Solar Physics