BLAST - A New Balloon-Borne Submillimeter Telescope

Abstract

BLAST the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope, will have three bolometer arrays operating at 250, 350, and 500 pm, with 149, 88, and 43 detectoi-s respectively. The arrays will be cooled to 300 rnK so that the receiver's noise (NEFD) will be dominated by photon shot noise and atmospheric emission. Because of the high (35 km) altitude of balloon observations, atmospheric noise will be low and we expect NEFDs less than 241 mJy/H:1 2 in all channels. A 2.0 m diameter spherical mirror will give diffraction limited resolutions of 30, 41, and 59" respectively. The first test flight, planned for early 2003, will last 6-24 hours across North America. Long-duration balloon flights from Antarctica will begin in late 2003 and will last 14 days. BLAST will yield data on astronomical problems as close as nearby stars and as far away as the beginnings of the Universe