@inproceedings{7f23e0bf418c4a65baa467053e49e74d,
title = "The Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for polarization: BLAST-pol",
abstract = "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 2 m 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 500μm. The diffraction-limited optical system provides a resolution of 30″ at 250 μm. The pointing system enables raster-like scans with a positional accuracy of ∼ ″, reconstructed to better than 5″ rms in post-flight 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.",
keywords = "Balloons, Instrumentation:miscellaneous, Polarization, Stars:formation, Submillimeter",
author = "G. Marsden and Ade, {P. A.R.} and S. Benton and Bock, {J. J.} and Chapin, {E. L.} and J. Chung and Devlin, {M. J.} and S. Dicker and L. Fissel and M. Griffin and Gundersen, {J. O.} and M. Halpern and Hargrave, {P. C.} and Hughes, {D. H.} and J. Klein and A. Korotkov and MacTavish, {C. J.} and Martin, {P. G.} and Martin, {T. G.} and Matthews, {T. G.} and P. Mauskopf and L. Moncelsi and Netterfield, {C. B.} and G. Novak and E. Pascale and L. Olmi and G. Patanchon and M. Rex and G. Savini and D. Scott and C. Semisch and N. Thomas and Truch, {M. D.P.} and C. Tucker and Tucker, {G. S.} and Viero, {M. P.} and D. Ward-Thompson and Wiebe, {D. V.}",
year = "2008",
doi = "10.1117/12.788413",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9780819472304",
series = "Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering",
booktitle = "Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IV",
note = "Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy IV ; Conference date: 26-06-2008 Through 28-06-2008",
}