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Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for polarization: BLAST-pol. Marsden, Gaelen; Chapin, Edward; Halpern, Mark; Scott, Douglas
Abstract
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a sub-orbital experiment designed to study the process of star formation in local galaxies (including the Milky Way) and in galaxies at cosmological distances. Using a 2m Cassegrain telescope, BLAST images the sky onto a focal plane, which consists of 270 bolometric detectors split between three arrays, observing simultaneously in 30% wide bands, centered at 250, 350, and 500 μm. The diffraction-limited optical system provides a resolution of 30" at 250 μm. The pointing system enables raster-like scans with a positional accuracy of ~30", reconstructed to better than 5" rms in postflight analysis. BLAST had two successful flights, from the Arctic in 2005, and from Antarctica in 2006, which provided the first high-resolution and large-area (~0.8−200 deg2) submillimeter surveys at these wavelengths. As a pathfinder for the SPIRE instrument on Herschel, BLAST shares with the ESA satellite similar focal plane technology and scientific motivation. A third flight in 2009 will see the instrument modified to be polarization-sensitive (BLAST-pol). With its unprecedented mapping speed and resolution, BLAST-pol will provide insights into Galactic star-forming nurseries, and give the necessary link between the larger, coarse resolution surveys and the narrow, resolved observations of star-forming structures from space and ground based instruments being commissioned in the next 5 years. Copyright 2008 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited
Item Metadata
Title |
Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for polarization: BLAST-pol.
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Creator | |
Publisher |
Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)
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Date Issued |
2008
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Description |
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a sub-orbital experiment designed to study the process of star formation in local galaxies
(including the Milky Way) and in galaxies at cosmological distances. Using a 2m Cassegrain telescope, BLAST images the sky onto a focal plane, which consists
of 270 bolometric detectors split between three arrays, observing simultaneously in 30% wide bands, centered at 250, 350, and 500 μm. The diffraction-limited
optical system provides a resolution of 30" at 250 μm. The pointing system enables raster-like scans with a positional accuracy of ~30", reconstructed to better
than 5" rms in postflight analysis. BLAST had two successful flights, from the Arctic in 2005, and from Antarctica in 2006, which provided the first high-resolution
and large-area (~0.8−200 deg2) submillimeter surveys at these wavelengths. As a pathfinder for the SPIRE instrument on Herschel, BLAST shares with the ESA
satellite similar focal plane technology and scientific motivation. A third flight in 2009 will see the instrument modified to be polarization-sensitive (BLAST-pol).
With its unprecedented mapping speed and resolution, BLAST-pol will provide insights into Galactic star-forming nurseries, and give the necessary link between
the larger, coarse resolution surveys and the narrow, resolved observations of star-forming structures from space and ground based instruments being commissioned
in the next 5 years.
Copyright 2008 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.
One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution,
duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited
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Genre | |
Type | |
Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2011-09-13
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0107585
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URI | |
Affiliation | |
Citation |
Marsden, Gaelen; Ade, Peter A. R.; Bock, James J.; Chapin, Edward L.; Chung, Jaspaul; Devlin, Mark J.; Dicker, Simon R.; Fissel, Laura M.; Griffin, Matt; Gundersen, Joshua O.; Halpern, Mark; Hargrave, Peter C.; Hughes, David H.; Klein, Jeffery; Korotkov, Andrei; MacTavish, Carrie J.; Martin, Peter G.; Martin, T. G.; Matthews, Tristan G.; Mauskopf, Philip D.; Moncelsi, Lorenzo; Netterfield, C. Barth; Novak, Giles; Pascale, Enzo; Olmi, Luca; Patanchon, Guillaume; Rex, Marie; Savini, Giorgio; Scott, Douglas; Semisch, Christopher; Thomas, Nicholas E.; Truch, Matthew D. P.; Tucker, Carole E.; Tucker, Gregory S.; Viero, Marco P.; Ward-Thompson, Derek Wiebe, Donald V. Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for polarization: BLAST-pol. Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IV, edited by William D. Duncan, Wayne S. Holland, Stafford Withington, Jonas Zmuidzina, Proceedings of SPIE Volume 7020, 702002, 2008.
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Publisher DOI |
10.1117/12.788413
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Peer Review Status |
Reviewed
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Scholarly Level |
Faculty
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Copyright Holder |
Halpern, Mark
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Rights URI | |
Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International