James Webb Space Telescope
http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/MIRI/performance.htm
Frontier Science with the James Webb Space Telescope - great slides!
search http://www.stsci.edu for point spread function:
Point spread function modeling software paper
Hubble Exposure Time Calculators
GSMT AND JWST: Looking Back to the Future of the Universe
A GIANT SEGMENTED MIRROR TELESCOPE: SYNERGY WITH JWST
What can JWST resolve?
A Jansky is 1e-26 W / m2-Hz. The Hz bandwidth can be estimated from the wavelength and wavelength window: Hz = c Δλ / λ2 . A parsec is
Two pixels needed for Nyquist deconvolution of point spread function. 0.11 arcsecond (as) pixels means 0.22 as minimum for estimating size (more is better) A 100 AU round shell is 0.22 as across at 450 pc. The galactic disk is 300 pc thick, G stars
SOFIA airborne observatory, DLR/NASA
https://www.sofia.usra.edu/Science/ObserversHandbook/FORCAST.html
What SOFIA can resolve?
The power of a 60K 3.86e26 W black body emitter between 35.5 μm and 38.5 μm is about 1.7e25 W.
Using the 37 μm dichroic filter, 3.5 μm wide, 900 second exposure, the bandwidth is 766 GHz. The power sensitivity is 0.42 Jy * 766 GHz or 3.22 e-15 W/m2.
4πR2 = 1.7e25 W / 3.22 e-15 W/m2 = 5.28e39 m2, R = 2.05e19 m. A parsec is 3.0857e16 meters, so R = 660 pc.
Spitzer Infrared Satellite, NASA
What can Spitzer resolve?
Herschel Infrared Satellite, ESA
What can Herschel resolve?
balloon
PIROG 4 (Pointing InfraRed Observing Gondola)
THE BALLOON-BORNE LARGE APERTURE SUBMILLIMETER TELESCOPE: BLAST