BLAST - a balloon-borne large aperture submillimeter telescope

The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope (BLAST) incorporates a two meter primary mirror with large-format bolometer arrays consisting of 149, 88, and 43 elements operating at 250, 350 and 500 µm, respectively. The combination of the dramatically increased atmospheric transmission a...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:AIP Conference Proceedings,
Main Authors: Gundersen, Joshua, Ade, Peter A. R., Bock, Jamie, De Bernardis, Paolo, Devlin, Mark, Griffin, Matthew Joseph, Halpern, Mark, Hughes, David, Klein, Jeff, Masi, Silvia, Mauskopf, Philip Daniel, Netterfield, Barth, Olmi, Luca, Scott, Douglas, Tucker, Greg
Format: Conference Object
Language:unknown
Published: 2002
Subjects:
QB Astronomy
QC Physics
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/7390/
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1457714
Description
Summary:The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope (BLAST) incorporates a two meter primary mirror with large-format bolometer arrays consisting of 149, 88, and 43 elements operating at 250, 350 and 500 µm, respectively. The combination of the dramatically increased atmospheric transmission at balloon altitudes and the extended observing time (10–20 days) afforded by a long duration balloon flight will enable the first sensitive, large-area (10 deg2) sub-mm surveys at these wavelengths. These surveys will address some of the most important galactic and cosmological questions regarding the formation and evolution of stars, galaxies, and clusters as well as the source(s) of the cosmic infrared background. The BLAST focal plane will consist of arrays of silicon nitride micromesh, "spider-web" bolometric detectors operating at 300 mK coupled to 2 f feedhorn arrays. The first overnight test flight of BLAST is scheduled for autumn of 2002, and the first long duration balloon flight is scheduled to be from McMurdo, Antarctica in 2003–2004.

Similar Items