Abstract

We describe a rocket-borne telescope in which all components in or near the detector’s field of view are cooled to liquid helium temperature. The system uses ir detectors to make photometric observations of the night sky in the 5-μ to ~1.6 mm spectral range. A description of the detectors and their calibration is given. On 29 February 1968, the telescope was successfully flown to an altitude of 170 km on an Aerobee 150 sounding rocket.

© 1969 Optical Society of America

A Rocket-Borne Liquid Helium-Cooled Infrared Telescope. I: Dewar and Optics

D. P. McNutt, K. Shivanandan, and P. D. Feldman
Appl. Opt. 8(11) 2199-2204 (1969)

A Rocket-Borne Liquid Helium-Cooled Infrared Telescope. II: Photoconductive Detectors

P. D. Feldman and D. P. McNutt
Appl. Opt. 8(11) 2205-2210 (1969)

A Liquid Nitrogen Cooled, Rocket Borne, Infrared Telescope

Martin Harwit, D. P. McNutt, K. Shivanandan, and B. J. Zajac
Appl. Opt. 5(11) 1732-1735 (1966)

Superfluid-Helium-Cooled Rocket-Borne Far-Infrared Radiometer

A. G. Blair, F. Edeskuty, R. D. Hiebert, D. M. Jones, J. P. Shipley, and K. D. Williamson
Appl. Opt. 10(5) 1043-1050 (1971)

A Rocket Telescope Spectrometer with High Precision Pointing Control

M. Bottema, W. G. Fastie, and H. W. Moos
Appl. Opt. 8(9) 1821-1826 (1969)