A pinhole sun sensor for balloon-borne experiment attitude determination

Korotkov, A. L., English, M.-P., Tucker, G. S., Pascale, Enzo ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3242-8154 and Gandilo, N. 2013. A pinhole sun sensor for balloon-borne experiment attitude determination. Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation 2 (1) , 1350005. 10.1142/S2251171713500050

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Abstract

We report on the design, calibration and in-flight performance of a sun sensor, which is used to determine the attitude of a balloon-borne telescope. The device uses a position-sensitive detector (PSD) in a pinhole camera. By determining the position of the image of the Sun on the PSD, the orientation of the sun sensor and the boresight of the telescope relative to the Sun can be determined. The pinhole sun sensor (PSS) was first flown in the December 2010 flight of the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope with Polarization (BLAST-Pol). In flight the PSS achieved an accuracy (combined azimuth and elevation) of about 0.18°. The accuracy could be improved by increasing the distance between the pinhole and the PSD, but the field-of-view of the PSS would be reduced.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Balloons; instrumentation: miscellaneous; techniques: miscellaneous
Publisher:	World Scientific Publishing
ISSN:	2251-1717
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	16 May 2023 19:55
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/59175

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