The long duration flight of the TopHat experiment

R. F. Silverberg, J. Aguirre, J. Bezaire, E. S. Cheng, P. R. Christensen, S. Cordone, D. A. Cottingham, T. Crawford, D. J. Fixsen, P. Kenny, L. Knox, R. E. Kristensen, S. Meyer, Hans Ulrik Nørgaard-Nielsen, P. T. Timbie, G. W. Wilson

    Research output: Contribution to journalConference articleResearchpeer-review

    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 languageEnglish
    JournalProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
    Volume4857
    Pages (from-to)195-203
    ISSN0277-786X
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2003

    Keywords

    • Balloon

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