Energy spectra of a number of celestial x-ray sources in the energy range from 2 to 60 kiloelectron volts.
The emission of 20 to 60 kev x-rays by an astronomical object in the constellation of Cygnus has been observed with a balloon-borne x-ray telescope flown from Hyderabad, India. The balloon data, used in conjunction with data pertaining to the flux in the wavelength range from 2 to 10 A can be fitted by a power law in photon energy varying as (h(v))-(1.7). The Cygnus object is the brightest object in the sky in the hard x-ray wavelength range and has the hardest spectrum of all observed objects that emit x-rays. The astronomical object should be capable of accelerating protons up to energies of the order of 10(18) electron volts. Upper limits to the hard x-ray fluxes from Sco XR-1, Cyg XR-2, Oph XR-1, and Ser XR-1 are established; it is shown that the Sco XR-1 spectrum is very soft.
McCracken
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