The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) 2005: calibration and targeted sources

• Published in: The Astrophysical Journal
• Main Authors: Truch, M. D. P., Ade, P. A. R., Bock, J. J., Chapin, E. L., Devlin, M. J., Dicker, S., Griffin, M., Gundersen, J. O., Halpern, M., Hargrave, P. C., Hughes, D. H., Klein, J., Marsden, G., Martin, P. G., Mauskopf, P., Netterfield, C. B., Olmi, L., Pascale, E., Patanchon, G., Rex, M., Scott, D., Semisch, C., Tucker, C. E., Viero, M. P., Wiebe, D. V., Tucker, G. S.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: American Astronomical Society 2008
• Subjects: balloons; submillimeter; telescopes; Northern Sweden
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1086/588542

The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) operated successfully during a 100 hr flight from northern Sweden in 2005 June (BLAST05). As part of the calibration and pointing procedures, several compact sources were mapped, including solar system, Galactic, and extragalactic targets, specifically Pallas, CRL 2688, LDN 1014, IRAS 20126+4104, IRAS 21078+5211, IRAS 21307+5049, IRAS 22134+5834, IRAS 23011+6126, K3-50, W75N, and Mrk 231. One additional source, Arp 220, was observed and used as our primary calibrator. Details of the overall BLAST05 calibration procedure are discussed here. The BLAST observations of each compact source are described, flux densities and spectral energy distributions are reported, and these are compared with previous measurements at other wavelengths. The 250, 350, and 500 μm BLAST data can provide useful constraints to the amplitude and slope of the submillimeter continuum, which in turn may be useful for the improved calibration of other submillimeter instruments. © 2008 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2007 May 29, accepted for publication 2008 February 28. The BLAST collaboration acknowledges the support of NASA through grants NAG5-12785, NAG5-13301, and NNGO-6GI11G, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC). We would also like to thank the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) staff for their outstanding work, as well as T. G. Muller for valuable discussions on Pallas. L. O. acknowledges partial support by the Puerto Rico Space Grant Consortium and by the Fondo Istitucional para la Investigacion of the University of Puerto Rico. C.B.N. acknowledges support from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. This research has been enabled by the use of WestGrid computing resources. This research also made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at the Centre de Donées astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS), Strasbourg, France, and ...