Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Validation Of Data Reduction Interactive Pipeline For Forcast On Sofia, Brent C. Nicklas, William T. Reach, Sachindev S. Shenoy Aug 2013

Validation Of Data Reduction Interactive Pipeline For Forcast On Sofia, Brent C. Nicklas, William T. Reach, Sachindev S. Shenoy

STAR Program Research Presentations

The Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a heavily modified Boeing 747SP aircraft equipped with 2.5 meter reflecting telescope. Among the suite of instruments onboard is the Faint Object Infrared Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST). FORCAST features two cameras for short (5-25 microns) and long (25-40 microns) wavelength detection. Making infrared observations in these wavelengths presents a challenge because the telescope and sky emit background radiation magnitudes brighter than the object of interest. Because of this, the raw FORCAST data must be corrected and reduced. The Data Reduction Interactive Pipeline (DRIP) was developed to process all FORCAST data …


Analyzing The Performance Of The Sofia Infrared Telescope, Sarah M. Bass, Jeffrey Van Cleve, Zaheer Ali Aug 2013

Analyzing The Performance Of The Sofia Infrared Telescope, Sarah M. Bass, Jeffrey Van Cleve, Zaheer Ali

STAR Program Research Presentations

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is an airborne near-space observatory onboard a modified Boeing 747-SP aircraft, which flies at altitudes of 45,000 ft., above 99% of the Earth’s water vapor. SOFIA contains an effective 2.5 m infrared (IR) telescope that has a dichroic tertiary mirror, reflecting IR and visible wavelengths to the science instrument (SI) and focal plane imager (FPI), respectively. To date, seven different SIs have been designed to cover a wide range of wavelengths and spectral resolutions. Since the telescope operates in the infrared, different techniques, including chopping, nodding, and dithering, are used to reduce the …