Related papers: Fine tracking system for balloon-borne telescopes
This paper addresses the lack of a general methodology for the controller synthesis of an optical instrument on-board a stratospheric balloon-borne platform, such as a telescope or siderostat, to meet pointing requirements that are becoming…
The ultraviolet (UV) window has been largely unexplored through balloons for astronomy. We discuss here the development of a compact near-UV spectrograph with fiber optics input for balloon ights. It is a modified Czerny-Turner system built…
Balloon-borne astronomy is unique in that it allows for a level of image stability, resolution, and optical backgrounds that are comparable to space-borne systems due to greatly reduced atmospheric interference, but at a fraction of the…
Astrometric detection and mass determination of Earth-mass exoplanets requires sub-microarcsec accuracy, which is theoretically possible with an imaging space telescope using field stars as an astrometric reference. The measurement must…
We report on the R\&D for a first prototype of a silicon tracker based on an alternative approach for fast track finding. The working principle is inspired from neurobiology, in particular by the processing of visual images by the brain as…
Balloon-borne astronomy is a unique tool that allows for a level of image stability and significantly reduced atmospheric interference without the often prohibitive cost and long development time-scale that are characteristic of space-borne…
The idea of using stellar photometry for atmospheric monitoring for optical experiments in high-energy astrophysics is seemingly straightforward, but reaching high precision of the order of 0.01 in the determination of the vertical aerosol…
The boloSource() algorithm is a tool to separate the signal of compact sources from that of the diffuse background in the timeline of far-infrared measurements performed by the PACS camera of the Herschel Space Observatory. An important…
Equipped with a suitable optical relay system, telescopes employing low-cost fixed primary mirrors could point and track while delivering high-quality images to a fixed location. Such an optical tracking system would enable liquid-mirror…
In clinical procedures of angioplasty (i.e., open clogged coronary arteries), devices such as balloons and stents need to be placed and expanded in arteries under the guidance of X-ray fluoroscopy. Due to the limitation of X-ray dose, the…
Wide field small aperture telescopes are widely used for optical transient observations. Detection and classification of astronomical targets in observed images are the most important and basic step. In this paper, we propose an…
We present a precise thermometry system to monitor room-temperature components of a telescope for radio-astronomy such as cosmic microwave background (CMB) observation. The system realizes precision of 1 mK${\rm \sqrt{s}}$ on a timescale of…
This paper compares the performance of two different high-precision, photometric measurement techniques for bright (<11 magnitude) stars using the small telescope systems that today's amateur astronomers typically use. One technique is…
We developed a beam telescope system comprising five layers of 300-$\mu$m-thick INTPIX4NA monolithic pixel sensors with each pixel size of 17 $\mu$m square. The sensors were fabricated using silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology. The…
We describe the development and implementation of a light-weight, fully autonomous 2-axis pointing and stabilization system designed for balloon-borne astronomical payloads. The system is developed using off-the-shelf components such as…
We study the fundamental limits of detection for astrophysical observations in the far infrared. Understanding these fundamental limits is critical to the planning and analysis of experiments in this region. We specifically characterize the…
High altitude balloons (HABs) are typically tracked via GPS data sent via real-time radio-based communication systems such as the Automated Packet Reporting System (APRS). Prefabricated APRS-compatible tracker modules have made it trivial…
This paper demonstrates a system comprised of infrared beacons and a camera equipped with an optical band-pass filter. Our system can reliably detect and identify individual beacons at 100m distance regardless of lighting conditions. We…
Fast and accurate eye tracking in a virtual reality or augmented reality headset could lead to better display performance and enable novel methods of user interaction with the system. However, it remains a challenge for a system to combine…
A new generation of sub-orbital platforms will be operational in the next few years. These new telescopes will operate from airborne and balloon-borne platforms where the atmosphere is transparent enough to allow sensitive measurements to…