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FIREBall-2 UV balloon telescope in-flight calibration system
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

FIREBall-2 UV balloon telescope in-flight calibration system

Jessica S. Li, Nazende I. Kerkeser, Aafaque R. Khan, Simran Agarwal, Olivia Jones, Erika Hamden, Trenton Brendel, Haeun Chung, Vincent Picouet, David Schiminovich, …
Journal of astronomical telescopes, instruments, and systems, Vol.10(3), 035002
08/05/2024
DOI: 10.1117/1.JATIS.10.3.035002
url
https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.10.3.035002View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

We present the integration of a new calibration system into the Faint Intergalactic-medium Redshifted Emission Balloon-2 (FIREBall-2), which added in-flight calibration capability for the recent September 2023 flight. This system is composed of a calibration source box containing zinc and deuterium lamp sources, focusing optics, electronics, sensors, and a fiber-fed calibration cap with an optical shutter mounted on the spectrograph tank. We discuss how the calibration cap is optimized to be evenly illuminated through non-sequential modeling for the near-UV (191 to 221 nm) for spectrograph slit mask position calibration, electron multiplying charged-coupled device (EMCCD) gain amplification verification, and wavelength calibration. Then, we present the pre-flight performance testing results of the calibration system and their implications for in-flight measurements. FIREBall-2 flew in 2023, but did not collect calibration data due to early termination of the flight.
calibration balloon telescope ultraviolet FIREBall

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