SuperBIT Superpressure Flight Instrument Overview and Performance: Near diffraction-limited Astronomical Imaging from the Stratosphere

SuperBIT was a 0.5-meter near-ultraviolet to near-infrared wide-field telescope that launched on a NASA superpressure balloon into the stratosphere from New Zealand for a 45-night flight. SuperBIT acquired multi-band images of galaxy clusters to study the properties of dark matter using weak gravita...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-08
Main Authors: Gill, Ajay S, Benton, Steven J, Damaren, Christopher J, Everett, Spencer W, Fraisse, Aurelien A, Hartley, John W, Harvey, David, Holder, Bradley, Huff, Eric M, Jauzac, Mathilde, Jones, William C, Lagattuta, David, Leung, Jason S -Y, Li, Lun, Thuy Vy T Luu, Massey, Richard, McCleary, Jacqueline E, Nagy, Johanna M, C Barth Netterfield, Paracha, Emaad, Redmond, Susan F, Rhodes, Jason D, Robertson, Andrew, Romualdez, L Javier, Schmoll, Jürgen, Shaaban, Mohamed M, Sirks, Ellen L, Vassilakis, Georgios N, Vitorelliand, André Z
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astronomical instruments
Celestial bodies
Dark matter
Diffraction
Flight
Focal plane
Galactic clusters
Gravitational lenses
Image acquisition
Image stabilizers
Infrared astronomy
Infrared telescopes
Optical properties
Point spread functions
Stability
Stratosphere
Subsystems
Superpressure balloons
Telescopes
Ultraviolet astronomy
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Summary:SuperBIT was a 0.5-meter near-ultraviolet to near-infrared wide-field telescope that launched on a NASA superpressure balloon into the stratosphere from New Zealand for a 45-night flight. SuperBIT acquired multi-band images of galaxy clusters to study the properties of dark matter using weak gravitational lensing. We provide an overview of the instrument and its various subsystems. We then present the instrument performance from the flight, including the telescope and image stabilization system, the optical system, the power system, and the thermal system. SuperBIT successfully met the instrument's technical requirements, achieving a telescope pointing stability of 0.34 +/- 0.10 arcseconds, a focal plane image stability of 0.055 +/- 0.027 arcseconds, and a PSF FWHM of ~ 0.35 arcseconds over 5-minute exposures throughout the 45-night flight. The telescope achieved a near-diffraction limited point-spread function in all three science bands (u, b, and g). SuperBIT served as a pathfinder to the GigaBIT observatory, which will be a 1.34-meter near-ultraviolet to near-infrared balloon-borne telescope.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2408.01847