Long-duration flight of the TopHat experiment

Robert F. Silverberg; James Aguirre; Jeff Bezaire; Edward S. Cheng; Per Rex Christensen; Shawn Cordone; David A. Cottingham; Thomas Crawford; Dale J. Fixsen; P. Kenny; Lloyd Knox; Rene Engel Kristensen; Stephan Meyer; Hans Ulrich Noergaard-Nielsen; Peter T. Timbie; Grant W. Wilson

doi:10.1117/12.458649

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3 March 2003 The long duration flight of the TopHat experiment

Robert F. Silverberg, James Aguirre, Jeff Bezaire, Edward S. Cheng, Per Rex Christensen, Shawn Cordone, David A. Cottingham, Thomas Crawford, Dale J. Fixsen, P. Kenny, Lloyd Knox, Rene Engel Kristensen, Stephan Meyer, Hans Ulrich Noergaard-Nielsen, Peter T. Timbie, Grant W. Wilson

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Proceedings Volume 4857, Airborne Telescope Systems II; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.458649
Event: Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawai'i, United States

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.

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Robert F. Silverberg, James Aguirre, Jeff Bezaire, Edward S. Cheng, Per Rex Christensen, Shawn Cordone, David A. Cottingham, Thomas Crawford, Dale J. Fixsen, P. Kenny, Lloyd Knox, Rene Engel Kristensen, Stephan Meyer, Hans Ulrich Noergaard-Nielsen, Peter T. Timbie, and Grant W. Wilson "The long duration flight of the TopHat experiment", Proc. SPIE 4857, Airborne Telescope Systems II, (3 March 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.458649

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