Instrumentation Commons^™

The Study Of Nuclear Structure Of Neutron-Rich 81ge And Its Contribution In The R-Process Via The Neutron Transfer Reaction 80ge(D,P), Sunghoon Ahn

Doctoral Dissertations

The study of low-lying levels of nuclei near closed shells not only elucidates the evolution of nuclear shell structure far from stability, but also affects estimates of heavy element nucleosynthesis in supernova explosions. Especially, the properties of the low-lying levels in ⁸¹Ge[Germanium 81] are important because the sensitivity study of the r-process pointed out that the properties of the nucleus can affect the final bundance pattern. Also, the spins and parities measurements of the states are essential to understand the shape coexistence in odd-mass N = 49 isotones.

This work describes the study of the odd-mass N = …

Characterization Of Samples For Optimization Of Infrared Stray Light Coatings, Carey L. Baxter, Rebecca Salvemini, Zaheer A. Ali, Patrick Waddell, Greg Perryman, Bob Thompson

STAR Program Research Presentations

NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a converted 747SP that houses a 2.5 m telescope that observes the sky through an opening in the side of the aircraft. Because it flies at altitudes up to 45,000 feet, SOFIA gets 99.99% transmission in the infrared. Multiple science instruments mount one at a time on the telescope to interpret infrared and visible light from target sources. Ball Infrared Black (BIRB) currently coats everything that the optics sees inside the telescope assembly (TA) cavity in order to eliminate noise from the glow of background sky, aircraft exhaust, and other sources. A …

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 …

Flitecam Data Process Validation, Jesse K. Tsai, Sachindev S. Shenoy, Brent Cedric Nicklas, Zaheer Ali, William T. Reach

STAR Program Research Presentations

FLITECAM Data Processing Validation

Many of the challenges that come from working with astronomical imaging arise from the reduction of raw data into scientifically meaningful data. First Light Infrared Test CAMera (FLITECAM) is an infrared camera operating in the 1.0–5.5 μm waveband on board SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy). Due to the significant noise from the atmosphere and the camera itself, astronomers have developed many methods to reduce the effects of atmospheric and instrumental emission. The FLITECAM Data Reduction Program (FDRP) is a program, developed at SOFIA Science Center, subtracts darks, removes flats, and dithers images.

This project contains …

Counting Photons To Calibrate A Photometer For Stellar Intensity Interferometry, Jason Chew

Physics

We use a telescope and photometer to observe stellar photons and measure the rate of observed photons. Based on intensity spectra from the Spectrophotometric Catalogue of Stars, we also predict expected values for the photon rates, which we compare to our measurements. From this comparison, we measure the local optical depth to be τ = 0.60±0.25, a reasonable value. We find that our predictions are directly proportional to our measurements by a factor of 0.98 (+0.02, -0.27) . The similarity between our measurements and expectations shows that we are able to both predict and measure photon rates with accuracy.