Showing papers by "Brian Babler published in 2000"

Low-cost attitude determination system and imager with embedded compression

Abstract: The Space Astronomy Laboratory has built and flown a very- low-cost (approximately 50K) star tracker and digital imaging system with embedded compression. The star tracker is suitable for all rocket and spacecraft applications, and provides pitch, yaw, and roll updates at rates up to 10 Hz. The digital imaging subsystem uses a novel NASA-funded scheme of `progressive image transmission' in which the image is sent out over a very-low-bandwidth channel, such as a telemetry downlink, in such a way that it can be reconstructed `on the fly' and updated as more data arrive. Large (768 X 474) useful images can be obtained over a 4- kbit/s downlink in as little as 10 seconds. This device can act as an aspect camera, a deployment monitor, or a science imager in situations where low bandwidth is desired or high bandwidth is not available.

A Spectropolarimetric Atlas of 61 Bright Northern Be Stars

Abstract: We are developing an atlas of spectropolarimetric observations of 61 bright northern Be stars obtained from 1989-94 using the halfwave polarimeter (HPOL) at the 0.9m telescope of the University of Wisconsin Pine Bluff Observatory (PBO). The data cover the wavelength range from about 3400-7600A, with a spectral resolution of about 25A. This atlas will contain all data (297 observations total) obtained as part of a survey program with HPOL during the time when the detector in use was a dual Reticon array; the survey observations with HPOL continue, using a new CCD detector which extends the spectral coverage out to 1.05 μ m and improves the spectral resolution to about 12A. The CCD observations will be presented later in a second volume of the atlas. Only a brief summary of the findings of the survey from the first 5 years of the project is presented here. A full analysis of the data will be included in a paper to be published elsewhere. The general wavelength dependence of polarization for classical Be stars can be considered on the basis of these observations, and results on polarimetric variability are available. In particular, we find that 56% (20 of 36) of the Be stars observed 3 or more times from 1989-94 show significantly variable polarization at the level of 0.1% changes (inclusion of preliminary results from the continuing CCD survey indicates that the percentage is even higher). The timescales for these changes range from as short as night-to-night to as long as several months. Several of the stars showed evidence for polarimetric “outbursts” during the time period covered by the observations.