Far-Infrared Imaging of the Galactic Center with the GSFC Wide Field Camera aboard the NASA/Ames Learjet

We present our first light observations of the Galactic Center at 35 microns using a wide field imaging camera designed by NASA/GSFC/LaRC for NASA/Ames Learjet. Our observation cover both the thermal and non-thermal filament regions as well as the Galactic Center. Using a Si:Sb BIB detector from Rockwell with a 128 x 128 moderate background multiplexer from Cornell University, the GSFC BIB array camera has a 12.8' field of view when mounted to the learjet's f/6 telescope. At 30 microns the effective PSF of the learjet telescope is comparable to the PSF of the Kuiper Airborne Observatory at 100 microns (approximately 25 arc seconds). Our current results show both the extended emission of the Galactic Center as well as the emission from the thermal filaments mapped previously at longer far-infrared and radio wavelengths.