Lacy, John H. | Search NASA

NASA NTRS1998

A Very High Resolution Mid Infrared Spectrograph for SOFIA

The purpose of this project was to study the design of a high resolution mid-infrared spectrograph for the SOFIA airborne observatory. The primary motivation for the construction and use of such an instrument is the study of vibrational transitions of molecules in molecular clouds, circumstellar inflows and outflows, and planetary atmospheres, which are blocked from ground-based observations by absorption by the Earth's atmosphere. The instrument design studied is a cross-dispersed grating spectrograph with several modes of operation giving spectral resolving powers of approximately 4000, 20,000, and 100,000. In the two lower resolution modes a single grating is used in a long-slit spectrograph. At high resolution that grating serves as the cross-disperser for a 1-m long echelon, a very coarsely and steeply ruled grating, diamond-machined in aluminum. Several design study tasks were carried out: 1. An optical and mechanical design was developed. It differed from the preliminary design by using a reflecting focal reducer in the fore-optics and by rearranging the echelon and cross-dispersing chambers to improve the efficiency of the long-slit modes. 2. A finite-element analysis of the dewar and echelon support structures was done. It led us to change the echelon support to improve its rigidity. 3. Further information was obtained which convinced us that Hyperfine Inc. was capable of diamond-machining the echelon. 4. Several possible vendors of readout electronics and software were identified. It was decided that it is more cost-effective to purchase these items rather than developing them ourselves. 5. Observing and calibration procedures were studied. we did not identify significant changes needed from procedures used previously. 6. Possible expansions of instrument capabilities, including wavelength coverage, were studied. It appears unlikely that the echelon will perform well at wavelengths shortward of 5 microns, but the spectral coverage could be extended longward of 28 microns with the use of an Si:Sb detector. No patentable inventions were made during this study. Based on this design study, a proposal was submitted to construct the instrument. It was chosen as one of the first-light instruments for SOFIA.

Lacy, John H.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Thermal spectroscopy of Neptune - The stratospheric temperature, hydrocarbon abundances, and isotopic ratios

NASA-IRTF observations of Neptune's disk-averaged spectrum are presently used, in conjunction with a lower-resolution spectrum, to furnish a more reliable absolute intensity calibration of portions of Neptune's disk-averaged spectrum. The temperature profile adopted is consistent with the size and shape of the H2 J = 3-1 quadrupole feature detected in the emission. High-resolution measurements of (C-13C-12)H6 and (C-12)2H6 imply C-12/C-13 of 78 +/- 26; this is consistent with solar and telluric values.

Orton, Glenn S.↗

NASA NTRS1992

A sensitive upper limit to OCS in Comet Austin (1989c1) from a search for nu3 emission at 4.85 microns

Cryogenic echelle grating spectrometry of Comet Austin has been obtained for the p(1) through p(14) line frequencies of the nu3 band of OCS. A 3-sigma upper limit for OCS abundance of 0.0055 is derived, relative to H2O, for an assumed coma temperature of 50 K. This value is intermediate between the IRAM observations of Comet Levy and Vega 1 measurements of P/Halley.

Disanti, Michael A.↗

NASA NTRS1992

A possible detection of infrared emission from carbon monoxide in Comet Austin (1989c1)

A cryogenic IR echelle grating spectrometer has been used to probe the nu = 1-0 rovibrational band of the CO molecule in Comet Austin. Line emission has been detected at the Doppler-shifted frequency expected for the cometary P(3) line, in scans which are noted to cover only the first 3000 sec of May 16, 1990 observations; this is suggested to be due to an outburst of comparable duration. No detections were made of the P(2) line, which was predicted by models to occur at the 3.5 sigma level even for relatively high coma temperatures. If the outburst was accompanied by enhanced dust production, an increase by a factor of 2.5 is consistent with the present observational data and CO/dust may have been enriched in the outbursting volume relative to the remainder of the nucleus.

Disanti, Michael A.↗