SUBMILLIMETER SPECTROSCOPY OF THE CARINA NEBULA: OBSERVATIONS, OPERATIONS AND UPGRADES OF THE SOUTH POLE IMAGING FABRY-PEROT INTERFEROMETER

• Main Authors: Thomas Edward Oberst, Ph. D
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: Antarctic; South Pole; The Antarctic; Antarc*; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.662.9133; http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/13886/1/Oberst,+Thomas.pdf

We present the results of a ∼ 250 arcmin2 mapping of the 205 µm [NII] fine-structure line emission over the northern CarinaNebula, including the Car I and Car II HII regions. Spectra were obtained using the South Pole Imaging Fabry-Perot Interferometer (SPIFI) at the Antarctic Telescope and Remote Observatory (AST/RO) at South Pole. New upgrades and modifications to the SPIFI instru-ment are discussed, and full details of SPIFI-AST/RO integration and calibra-tion are provided. At the time of these observations, SPIFI had a spectral resolv-ing power of ∼ 4250, a FWHM beam size of ∼ 54′′, and a noise equivalent power (NEP) referred to the front end of the receiver of ∼ 2.5 × 10−15 W Hz−1/2 ( ∼ 1.4 times the background limit). These data constitute the first ground-based de-tection of the 205 µm [NII] line, and only the third detection overall since those of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Far Infrared Absolute Spectropho-tometer (FIRAS) and the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) in the early 1990s. We supplement the 205 µm data with new reductions of far-infrared fine-structure spectra from the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) in 63 µm [OI], 122