The Balloon‐ borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) 2005: Calibration and Targeted Sources. The Astrophysical Journal 681:1, 415‐427 Online publication date: 1‐Jul‐2008
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a sub-orbital surveying experiment designed to study the evolutionary history and processes of star formation in local galaxies (including the Milky Way) and galaxies at cosmological distances. The BLAST continuum camera, which cons...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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2008
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.315.1972 http://arxiv.org/pdf/0711.3465v2.pdf |
| Summary: | The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a sub-orbital surveying experiment designed to study the evolutionary history and processes of star formation in local galaxies (including the Milky Way) and galaxies at cosmological distances. The BLAST continuum camera, which consists of 270 detectors distributed between 3 arrays, observes simultaneously in broadband (30%) spectral-windows at 250, 350, and 500µm. The optical design is based on a 2m diameter telescope, providing a diffraction-limited resolution of 30 ′ ′ at 250µm. The gondola pointing system enables raster mapping of arbitrary geometry, with a repeatable positional accuracy of ∼ 30 ′ ′ post-flight pointing reconstruction to � 5 ′ ′ rms is achieved. The on-board telescope control software permits autonomous execution of a pre-selected set of maps, with the option of manual override. In this paper we describe the primary characteristics and measured in-flight performance of BLAST. BLAST performed a test-flight in 2003 and has since made two scientifically productive long-duration balloon flights: a 100-hour flight from ESRANGE (Kiruna), Sweden to Victoria Island, northern |
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