Abstract
The TopHat instrument was designed to operate on the top of a high altitude balloon. From this location, the experiment
could efficiently observe using a clean beam with extremely low contamination from the far side lobes of the instrument
beam. The experiment was designed to scan a large portion of the sky directly above it and to map the anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and thermal emission from galactic dust. The instrument used a one-meter class
telescope with a five-band single pixel radiometer spanning the frequency range from 150-600 GHz. The radiometer
used bolometric detectors operating at ~250mK. Here, we report on the flight of the TopHat experiment over Antarctica in January, 2001 and describe the scientific goals, the operation, and in-flight performance.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Journal | Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering |
Volume | 4857 |
Pages (from-to) | 195-203 |
ISSN | 0277-786X |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2003 |
Keywords
- Balloon