A common radiometric platform for the development of application-specific metrics to quantify the performance of sensors and systems is described. Using this platform, sensor and system performance may be quantified in terms of the accuracy of measurements of standardized sets of source distributions. The prototype platform consists of spectrally programmable light sources that can generate com...

NASA’s space-borne nulling interferometer (the Terrestrial Planet Finder – TPF) will look for the traces of early life in the infrared spectra of extrasolar planets, beginning in roughly 2010. We point out that this instrument will also be sensitive to deliberate laser transmissions from a technologically advanced civilization. A kilowatt-class infrared laser with a 10-m beam director would pro...

A new reflectometer-spectrophotometer has been designed and constructed using state-of-the-art technology to enhance optical properties of materials measurements over the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared (UV-Vis-NIR) wavelength range (200 nm to 2500 nm). The instrument, Spectral Tri-function Automated Reference Reflectometer (STARR), is capable of measuring specular and diffuse reflectan...

The observations of all three COBE instruments are examined for the effects of dark matter. The anisotropy measured by the DMR, and especially the degreescale groundand balloon-based experiments, is only compatible with large-scale structure formation by gravity if the Universe is dominated by non-baryonic dark matter. The FIRAS instrument measures the total power radiated by cold dust, and thu...

This paper describes the design of a spectro-photo/radio-metric camera, that can be used in both portable and in-situ applications, whose compactness is made possible by a suitable image spectral scanning scheme based on a Linearly Variable Filter (LVF). Such filter is able to operate continuously from 400 nm to 2500 nm, allowing the hyper-spectral imaging from visible to near infrared. In trad...

Germanium photoconductors have been used in a variety of infrared astronomical experiments, both airborne and space-based. The bulk of our knowledge of the far-infrared properties of astronomical objects has come from observations made with these detectors. This paper describes the operational theory of these detectors, including amplifier considerations. Examples of recent focal plane array de...

The propagation of errors through the uniform disk visibility function is examined. Implications of those errors upon measures of absolute visibility through optical and near-infrared interferometers are considered within the context of using calibration stars to establish system visibilities for these instruments. We suggest a simple ratio test to establish empirically whether or not the measu...

Initial images of Venus's south pole by the Venus Express mission have shown the presence of a bright, highly variable vortex, similar to that at the planet's north pole. Using high-resolution infrared measurements of polar winds from the Venus Express Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) instrument, we show the vortex to have a constantly varying internal structure, with ...

The least well known structure of the Galaxy is its central region, because of the high extinction, the crowding and the confusion between disk and bulge sources along the line of sight. We show how the structure of the inner Galaxy and the dust distribution can be strongly constrained by using red clump stars as distance indicator. The results of this method applied on the deep near-infrared s...

Page 1 This report is intended to summarize basic functionality requirements for the facility calibration unit. The specifications outlined here are derived from material reviewed at recent IRISWG, OISWG, and GSC meetings, during September and October, 1994, as well as from individual contributions. The main difference between V1.0 and V1.1 of this document is that I have structured V1.1 on an ...