A Spin Modulated Telescope to Make Two Dimensional CMB Maps
Abstract
We describe the HEMT Advanced Cosmic Microwave Explorer (HACME), a balloon borne experiment designed to measure sub-degree scale Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy over hundreds of square degrees, using a unique two dimensional scanning strategy. A spinning flat mirror that is canted relative to its spin axis modulates the direction of beam response in a nearly elliptical path on the sky. The experiment was successfully flown in February of 1996, achieving near laboratory performance for several hours at float altitude. A map free of instrumental systematic effects is produced for a 3.5 hour observation of 630 square degrees, resulting in a flat band power upper limit of (l(l+1)C_l/2 pi)^0.5 < 77 microK at l = 38 (95% confidence). The experiment design, flight operations and data, including atmospheric effects and noise performance, are discussed.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9912212,
title = {A Spin Modulated Telescope to Make Two Dimensional CMB Maps},
author = {J. Staren and P. Meinhold and J. Childers and M. Lim and A. Levy and P. Lubin and M. Seiffert and T. Gaier and N. Figueiredo and T. Villela and C. A. Wuensche and M. Tegmark and A. de Oliveira-Costa},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9912212},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 3 figures