The TopHat experiment: A balloon-borne instrument for mapping millimeter and submillimeter emission
The TopHat experiment was designed to measure the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation on angular scales from 0.degrees 3 to 30 degrees and the thermal emission from both Galactic and extragalactic dust. The balloon-borne instrument had five spectral bands spanning frequencies fro...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
2005
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://orbit.dtu.dk/en/publications/88dcfbd0-28dc-4de3-b704-781c31992c4c https://backend.orbit.dtu.dk/ws/files/126662462/Silverberg_2005_ApJS_160_59.pdf |
Summary: | The TopHat experiment was designed to measure the anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation on angular scales from 0.degrees 3 to 30 degrees and the thermal emission from both Galactic and extragalactic dust. The balloon-borne instrument had five spectral bands spanning frequencies from 175 to 630 GHz. The telescope was a compact, 1 m, on-axis Cassegrain telescope designed to scan the sky at a fixed elevation of 78 degrees. The radiometer used cryogenic bolometers coupled to a single feed horn via a dichroic filter system. The observing strategy was intended to efficiently cover a region 48 degrees in diameter centered on the south polar cap with a highly cross-linked and redundant pattern with nearly uniform sky coverage. The Long Duration Balloon flight over Antarctica in 2001 January surveyed about 6% of the sky. Here we describe the design of the instrument and the achieved in-flight performance and provide a brief discussion of the data analysis. |
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