The balloon-borne large aperture submillimeter telescope (BLAST) 2006: calibration and flight performance

The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) operated successfully during a 250 hr flight over Antarctica in 2006 December (BLAST06). As part of the calibration and pointing procedures, the red hypergiant star VY CMa was observed and used as the primary calibrator. Details of the...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: David Hughes
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2009
País:México
Institución:Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica
Repositorio:Repositorio Institucional del INAOE
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:inaoe.repositorioinstitucional.mx:1009/1352
Acceso en línea:http://inaoe.repositorioinstitucional.mx/jspui/handle/1009/1352
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:info:eu-repo/classification/Inspec/Balloons
info:eu-repo/classification/Inspec/Submillimeter
info:eu-repo/classification/Inspec/Telescopes
info:eu-repo/classification/cti/1
info:eu-repo/classification/cti/21
Descripción
Sumario:The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) operated successfully during a 250 hr flight over Antarctica in 2006 December (BLAST06). As part of the calibration and pointing procedures, the red hypergiant star VY CMa was observed and used as the primary calibrator. Details of the overall BLAST06 calibration procedure are discussed. The 1σ uncertainty on the absolute calibration is accurate to 9.5%, 8.7%, and 9.2% at the 250, 350, and 500 μm bands, respectively. The errors are highly correlated between bands resulting in much lower errors for the derived shape of the 250–500 μm continuum. The overall pointing error is <5′′ rms for the 36′′, 42′′, and 60′′ beams. The performance of optics and pointing systems is discussed.