A new facility for airborne solar astronomy: NASA's WB-57 at the 2017 total solar eclipse
Abstract
NASA's WB-57 High Altitude Research Program provides a deployable, mobile, stratospheric platform for scientific research. Airborne platforms are of particular value for making coronal observations during total solar eclipses because of their ability both to follow the Moon's shadow and to get above most of the atmospheric airmass that can interfere with astronomical observations. We used the 2017 Aug 21 eclipse as a pathfinding mission for high-altitude airborne solar astronomy, using the existing high-speed visible-light and near-/mid-wave infrared imaging suite mounted in the WB-57 nose cone. In this paper, we describe the aircraft, the instrument, and the 2017 mission; operations and data acquisition; and preliminary analysis of data quality from the existing instrument suite. We describe benefits and technical limitations of this platform for solar and other astronomical observations. We present a preliminary analysis of the visible-light data quality and discuss the limiting factors that must be overcome with future instrumentation. We conclude with a discussion of lessons learned from this pathfinding mission and prospects for future research at upcoming eclipses, as well as an evaluation of the capabilities of the WB-57 platform for future solar astronomy and general astronomical observation.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2004.09658,
title = {A new facility for airborne solar astronomy: NASA's WB-57 at the 2017 total solar eclipse},
author = {Amir Caspi and Daniel B. Seaton and Constantine C. C. Tsang and Craig E. DeForest and Paul Bryans and Edward E. DeLuca and Steven Tomczyk and Joan T. Burkepile and Thomas "Tony" Casey and John Collier and Donald "DD" Darrow and Dominic Del Rosso and Daniel D. Durda and Peter T. Gallagher and Leon Golub and Matthew Jacyna and David "DJ" Johnson and Philip G. Judge and Cary "Diddle" Klemm and Glenn T. Laurent and Johanna Lewis and Charles J. Mallini and Thomas "Duster" Parent and Timothy Propp and Andrew J. Steffl and Jeff Warner and Matthew J. West and John Wiseman and Mallory Yates and Andrei N. Zhukov and the NASA WB-57 2017 Eclipse Observing Team},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.09658},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
17 pages, 10 figures; accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal