A precursor mission to high contrast imaging balloon system

Olivier Côté^a, Guillaume Allain^a, Denis Brousseau^a, Marie-Pier Lord^a, Samy Ouahbi^a, Mireille Ouellet^a, Deven Patel^a, Simon Thibault^a, Cédric Vallée^a, Ruslan Belikov^b, Eduardo Bendek^b, Célia Blain^c , Collin Bradley^c, Olivier Daigle^e, Chris de Jonge^l, David Doelman^d, René Doyon^f, Frédéric Grandmont^g, Micheal Helmbrecht^h, Mattew Kenworthy^d, David Lafrenière^f, Frank Marchisⁱ, Christian Marois^j, Steeve Montminy^k, Frans Snik^d, Gautam Vasisht^b, Jean-Pierre Véran^j , and Philippe Vincent^k

Author affiliations [–+]

^aCenter for Optics, Photonics and Lasers, Université Laval, Canada
^bNASA Ames Research Center, United States
^cUniversity of Victoria, Canada
^dUniversiteit Leiden, Netherlands
^eNüvü Caméras Inc., Canada
^f Université de Montréal, Canada
^gABB Inc., Canada
^hIris AO Inc., United States
ⁱSETI Institute, United States
^jNRC-Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, Canada
^kCanadian Space Agency, Canada
^lSRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, University of Groningen, Netherlands

Abstract

The HiCIBaS (High-Contrast Imaging Balloon System) project aims at launching a balloon borne telescope up to 36km to test high contrast imaging equipment and algorithms. The payload consists of a off the shelf 14-inch telescope with a custom-built Alt-Az mount. This telescope provides lights to two sensors, a pyramidal low order wave front sensor, and a coronagraphic wavefront sensor. Since the payload will reach its cruise altitude at about midnight mission, two target stars have been designated for observations, Capella as the night target, and Polaris as the early morning target. Data will be collected mainly on the magnitude of atmospheric and gondola’s turbulences, the luminosity of the background. The whole system is already built and ready to ship to Timmins for the launch in mid-August 2018.

Article published during SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin, Texas, United States

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