The Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for polarization: BLAST-pol

• Published in: SPIE Proceedings, Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IV
• Main Authors: Marsden, G., Ade, P.A.R., Benton, S., Bock, J. J., Chapin, E. L., Chung, J., Devlin, M. J., Dicker, S., Fissel, L., Griffin, M., Gundersen, J. O., Halpern, M., Hargrave, P. C., Hughes, D. H., Klein, J., Korotkov, A., Mactavish, C. J., Martin, P. G., Martin, T. G., Matthews, T. G., Mauskopf, P., Moncelsi, L., Netterfield, C. B., Novak, G., Pascale, E., Olmi, L., Patanchon, G., Rex, M., Savini, G., Scott, D., Semisch, C., Thomas, N., Truch, M. D. P., Tucker, C., Tucker, G. S., Viero, M. P., Ward-Thompson, D., Wiebe, D. V.
• Other Authors: APC - Cosmologie, AstroParticule et Cosmologie (APC (UMR_7164)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), William D. Duncan, Wayne S. Holland, Stafford Withington, Jonas Zmuidzinas
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2008
• Subjects: [PHYS.ASTR.CO]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Cosmology and Extra-Galactic Astrophysics [astro-ph.CO]; [SDU.ASTR.CO]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]/Cosmology and Extra-Galactic Astrophysics [astro-ph.CO]; [SDU.ASTR]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph]; Arctic; Milky Way; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://hal.in2p3.fr/in2p3-00330537; https://doi.org/10.1117/12.788413

International audience The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a sub-orbital experiment designed to study the process of star formation in local galaxies (including the Milky Way) and in galaxies at cosmological distances. Using a 2m Cassegrain telescope, BLAST images the sky onto a focal plane, which consists of 270 bolometric detectors split between three arrays, observing simultaneously in 30% wide bands, centered at 250, 350, and 500 ?m. The diffraction-limited optical system provides a resolution of 30" at 250 ?m. The pointing system enables raster-like scans with a positional accuracy of ~30", reconstructed to better than 5" rms in postflight analysis. BLAST had two successful flights, from the Arctic in 2005, and from Antarctica in 2006, which provided the first high-resolution and large-area (~0.8-200 deg2) submillimeter surveys at these wavelengths. As a pathfinder for the SPIRE instrument on Herschel, BLAST shares with the ESA satellite similar focal plane technology and scientific motivation. A third flight in 2009 will see the instrument modified to be polarization-sensitive (BLAST-pol). With its unprecedented mapping speed and resolution, BLAST-pol will provide insights into Galactic star-forming nurseries, and give the necessary link between the larger, coarse resolution surveys and the narrow, resolved observations of star-forming structures from space and ground based instruments being commissioned in the next 5 years.