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Session 34 - Real Instruments.
Display session, Tuesday, June 09
Atlas Ballroom,
We present the results of a recent sounding rocket flight which demonstrated our concept of ultraviolet spectral imaging from a rotating platform. Spectral imaging is a common technique at both ends of the electromagnetic spectrum. CCDs and PSPCs allow x-ray astronomers to construct spectral images of supernova remnants, hot bubbles, and other astrophysical sources which in turn allow them to probe the physics of these interactions. Radio astronomers regularly build maps with high spectral resolution to study the velocity structures present in clouds, disks, and jets. Unfortunately, these techniques were not previously practical in the visible and ultraviolet because of the limitations of recording three dimensional data on a two dimensional detector. Our system uses a rotational multiplexing technique to overcome these limitations.
The system flown used a set of four single element imaging spectrometers and our novel observing technique to record a full three dimensional spectral image with high spatial and spectral resolution. The data presented is used to test our numeric processing algorithms and to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach. We explore the strengths and weaknesses of our scheme and discuss our future plans.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: cook@bu.edu
