The Planck-LFI instrument: Analysis of the 1/f noise and implications for the scanning strategy

Abstract

We study the impact of 1/f noise on the PLANCK Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) observations (Mandolesi et al. 1998) and describe a simple method for removing striping effects from the maps for a number of different scanning strategies. A configuration with an angle between telescope optical axis and spin-axis just less than 90° (namely ≃ 85°) shows good destriping efficiency for all receivers in the focal plane, with residual noise degradation < 1 - 2%. In this configuration, the full sky coverage can be achieved for each channel separately with a 5° spin-axis precession to maintain a constant solar aspect angle.