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 Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), is a joint mission of 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 ≈ 1″ pixels (≈ 2″ resolution). Prior to analysis, the data product from this instrument must be properly calibrated and data values quantified to accurately assess the information contained within. We present here the standard methods of calibration for these data. The calibration was performed on an empirical basis that 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, because the remaining uncertainty after calibration is dominated by photon noise. This calibration software is available in the SolarSoft software library.