chucky
Line Up and Wait
NASA's SOFIA observatory, a modified 747SP (ex United, Pan Am), is visiting Ames this week, and I got to take a little tour of the aircraft yesterday. It's not often my career and my hobby come together like this, so I'm really geeking out over this. I figured I'd post some pictures here.
SOFIA is an infrared observatory - a 2.5 meter reflecting telescope that sits in the rear of the aircraft. The telescope compartment is unpressurized, and the telescope is mounted on a three-axis gimbal in the pressure bulkhead. Scientifically, the observatory is good for studying certain molecules that no other observatory can, and they've been taking science data for a while, but as far as I know nothing's been published yet (they're working on special issues of the Astrophysical Journal and possibly also Astronomy & Astrophysics, which is the reason nothing is out yet). This is not the sort of astronomy I do, so I really don't know much about the science.
SOFIA is an infrared observatory - a 2.5 meter reflecting telescope that sits in the rear of the aircraft. The telescope compartment is unpressurized, and the telescope is mounted on a three-axis gimbal in the pressure bulkhead. Scientifically, the observatory is good for studying certain molecules that no other observatory can, and they've been taking science data for a while, but as far as I know nothing's been published yet (they're working on special issues of the Astrophysical Journal and possibly also Astronomy & Astrophysics, which is the reason nothing is out yet). This is not the sort of astronomy I do, so I really don't know much about the science.
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