SPIREX - near infrared astronomy from the South Pole

Details SPIREX - near infrared astronomy from the South Pole SPIREX - near infrared astronomy from the South Pole

Mar 1994

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994exa.....3...87h&link_type=abstract

Experimental Astronomy, vol. 3, no. 1-4, p. 87-91

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

4

Antarctic Regions, Astronomical Observatories, Astronomical Photometry, Ground Stations, Infrared Astronomy, Infrared Spectroscopy, Infrared Telescopes, Near Infrared Radiation, Sky Surveys (Astronomy), Stellar Spectrophotometry, Astronomical Spectroscopy, Galactic Radiation, Infrared Spectrophotometers

Scientific paper

Over the next several years we will deploy a series of spectrometers, imagers, and telescopes at the South Pole as part of a project names SPIREX - for South Pole Infrared Explorer. Our goal is to survey a substantial area of the sky to study the origins of galaxies and stars. From space, the zodiacal light is the limiting source of noise over a wide range of wavelengths. It has a minimum in the near infrared: the reflected sunlight is diminishing with wavelength and reradiated thermal emission from the warm dust is one the rise. For this and other reasons, the near infrared is potentially the best window in which to carry out deep surveys of galaxies. On the ground, sensitivity of observations in the near infrared is limited by the Poisson noise of the large background flux from the atmosphere and telescope. Within a restricted wavelength range, this background depends only on two parameters: their temperature and emissivity. By building very low emissivity telescopes and operating them in the bitter cold of the Antarctic winter, we expect to make observations that will rival in sensitivity those attainable from cooled space-based telescopes.

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