TY - JOUR
T1 - Robust diffraction-limited near-infrared-to-near-ultraviolet wide-field imaging from stratospheric balloon-borne platforms - Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope performance
AU - Romualdez, L. Javier
AU - Benton, Steven J.
AU - Brown, Anthony M.
AU - Clark, Paul
AU - Damaren, Christopher J.
AU - Eifler, Tim
AU - Fraisse, Aurelien A.
AU - Galloway, Mathew N.
AU - Gill, Ajay
AU - Hartley, John W.
AU - Holder, Bradley
AU - Huff, Eric M.
AU - Jauzac, Mathilde
AU - Jones, William C.
AU - Lagattuta, David
AU - Leung, Jason S.Y.
AU - Li, Lun
AU - Luu, Thuy Vy T.
AU - Massey, Richard J.
AU - McCleary, Jacqueline
AU - Mullaney, James
AU - Nagy, Johanna M.
AU - Netterfield, C. Barth
AU - Redmond, Susan
AU - Rhodes, Jason D.
AU - Schmoll, Jürgen
AU - Shaaban, Mohamed M.
AU - Sirks, Ellen
AU - Tam, Sut Ieng
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Author(s).
PY - 2020/3/1
Y1 - 2020/3/1
N2 - At a fraction of the total cost of an equivalent orbital mission, scientific balloon-borne platforms, operating above 99.7% of the Earth's atmosphere, offer attractive, competitive, and effective observational capabilities - namely, space-like seeing, transmission, and backgrounds - which are well suited for modern astronomy and cosmology. The Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SUPERBIT) is a diffraction-limited, wide-field, 0.5 m telescope capable of exploiting these observing conditions in order to provide exquisite imaging throughout the near-infrared to near-ultraviolet. It utilizes a robust active stabilization system that has consistently demonstrated a 48 mas 1σ sky-fixed pointing stability over multiple 1 h observations at float. This is achieved by actively tracking compound pendulations via a three-axis gimballed platform, which provides sky-fixed telescope stability at < 500 mas and corrects for field rotation, while employing high-bandwidth tip/tilt optics to remove residual disturbances across the science imaging focal plane. SUPERBIT's performance during the 2019 commissioning flight benefited from a customized high-fidelity science-capable telescope designed with an exceptional thermo- and opto-mechanical stability as well as a tightly constrained static and dynamic coupling between high-rate sensors and telescope optics. At the currently demonstrated level of flight performance, SUPERBIT capabilities now surpass the science requirements for a wide variety of experiments in cosmology, astrophysics, and stellar dynamics.
AB - At a fraction of the total cost of an equivalent orbital mission, scientific balloon-borne platforms, operating above 99.7% of the Earth's atmosphere, offer attractive, competitive, and effective observational capabilities - namely, space-like seeing, transmission, and backgrounds - which are well suited for modern astronomy and cosmology. The Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SUPERBIT) is a diffraction-limited, wide-field, 0.5 m telescope capable of exploiting these observing conditions in order to provide exquisite imaging throughout the near-infrared to near-ultraviolet. It utilizes a robust active stabilization system that has consistently demonstrated a 48 mas 1σ sky-fixed pointing stability over multiple 1 h observations at float. This is achieved by actively tracking compound pendulations via a three-axis gimballed platform, which provides sky-fixed telescope stability at < 500 mas and corrects for field rotation, while employing high-bandwidth tip/tilt optics to remove residual disturbances across the science imaging focal plane. SUPERBIT's performance during the 2019 commissioning flight benefited from a customized high-fidelity science-capable telescope designed with an exceptional thermo- and opto-mechanical stability as well as a tightly constrained static and dynamic coupling between high-rate sensors and telescope optics. At the currently demonstrated level of flight performance, SUPERBIT capabilities now surpass the science requirements for a wide variety of experiments in cosmology, astrophysics, and stellar dynamics.
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U2 - 10.1063/1.5139711
DO - 10.1063/1.5139711
M3 - Article
C2 - 32259997
AN - SCOPUS:85081126517
SN - 0034-6748
VL - 91
JO - Review of Scientific Instruments
JF - Review of Scientific Instruments
IS - 3
M1 - 034501
ER -