Night Vision - Exploration of the Infrared Universe

Michael Rowan-Robinson, 2013

This is a book about the marvelous objects we can observe in the infrared, and the people who discovered them - not much technical detail about the instruments that make the measurements.

The graphs are interesting, and tell us about instrument sensitivity:

• p51 - Planetary nebula, λ 2 to 14 μm, 0 to 6e-16 W cm²μm. Sharp peaks (chemical resonances?), many less than 0.1μm wide, 1e-16 to 4e-16 on top of a broad 10μm thermal(?) peak, 300K? p-p noise 2e-17 Fred Gillette at UCSD, The Two Micron Survey, terrestrial telescopes, 1967?

• p57 - two graphs, PAH (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon) peaks. 3 to 18 μm
  NGC 2023: S^0_v 0 to 2500e-31 W/Hz
  M17-SW: 0 to 8000e-31 W/Hz
  est 300e-31 p-p noise. Leger, Puget, Allamandola around 1985.

• p111 - KOBE 2.7K black body background. Presumably lots of averaging.

• p175 - Herschel 190 to 315 μm wavelength

• Other graphs, only relative vertical units.

The book discusses these infrared observatories, extra information from wikipedia:

• IRAS Infrared Astronomical Satellite, 1983

  • 0.202 m², 12/25/60/100 μm, 30as to 2am resolution, 2K, superfluid He

• WMAP space telescope - microwave
• KOBE space telescope - microwave
• Hubble space telescope - optical
• Spitzer space telescope IR
• Herschel space telescope mid IR ESA
• ISO Infrared Space Observatory, 1995-1998 ESA

  • 60 cm, 2.5 to 17 μm, 3.4K/1.9K superfluid He

• JWST mid IR, 2018?
  • James Clerk Maxwell telescope on Mauna Kea
  • Altacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Telescope array
  • European Extremely Large Telescope, proposed 39 meter