From Single Pixels to Many Megapixels: Progress in Astronomical Infrared Imaging from Space-borne Telescopes
Abstract
In the 1960s, rocket infrared astronomy was in its infancy. The Cornell group planned a succession of rocket launches of a small cryogenically cooled telescope above much of the atmosphere. Cornell graduate students were tasked with hand-making single pixel detectors for the focal plane at wavelengths ranging from ~5 microns to just short of 1 mm. “Images” could only be constructed from scans of objects such as HII regions/giant molecular clouds, the galactic center, and of diffuse radiation from the various IR backgrounds. IRAS and COBE, followed by the KAO utilized ever more sensitive single IR detectors, and revolutionized our understanding of the Universe. The first IR arrays came onto the scene in the early 1970s - and in 1983 several experiments for the space mission SIRTF (later named Spitzer Space Telescope following launch 20 years later) were selected, all boasting (relatively small) arrays. Europe’s ISO and Herschel also employed arrays to good advantage, as has SOFIA, and now, many-megapixel IR arrays are sufficiently well-developed for upcoming space missions.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #229
- Pub Date:
- January 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AAS...22911101P