2007/11/30 by E. Pascale, P. A. R. Ade, J. J. Bock +27 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing #Aperture (computer memory) #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Detector #Galactic astronomy #Galaxy #Milky Way #Raster graphics #Sky #Spectral resolution #Superconducting and THz Device Technology #Telescope #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/588541
published as Astrophys.J. 681 (2008) 400-414 · 38 Pages, 11 figures; Replaced with version accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal; related results available at http://blastexperiment.info/
arxiv created 2008/03/27 · openalex publication_date 2008/07/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a suborbital surveying experiment designed to study the evolutionary history and processes of star formation in local galaxies (including the Milky Way) and galaxies at cosmological distances. The BLAST continuum camera, which consists of 270 detectors distributed between three arrays, observes simultaneously in broadband (30%) spectral windows at 250, 350, and 500 μm. The optical design is based on a 2 m diameter telescope, providing a diffraction-limited resolution of 30 '' at 250 μm. The gondola pointing system enables raster mapping of arbitrary geometry, with a repeatable positional accuracy of ~30 '' ; postflight pointing reconstruction to ≲5 '' rms is achieved. The onboard telescope control software permits autonomous execution of a preselected set of maps, with the option of manual override. In this paper we describe the primary characteristics and measured in-flight performance of BLAST. BLAST performed a test flight in 2003 and has since made two scientifically productive long-duration balloon flights: a 100 hr flight from ESRANGE (Kiruna), Sweden to Victoria Island, northern Canada in 2005 June; and a 250 hr, circumpolar flight from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, in 2006 December.