A Large Area High Resolution Cosmic Ray Charge Composition Detector

A detector designed to study the charge composition of the primary cosmic radiation in the range Z = 3 to 30 has been flown on balloons during 1969. The flight is part of a program to study the charge composition in the energy range 10 to 105 GeV. The telescope consists of a four fold charge measurement using two plastic scintillators, a Cerenkov detector and a mosaic CsI(Tl) detector. The intrinsic limitations on charge resolution due to statistical fluctuations in energy loss are approached by correcting the pulse heights for geometrical effects. This is accomplished by calibrating the detector response in flight using a spark chamber to determine the particle trajectories.