Engineering a Look at the Cosmos
| Are you curious about how SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) works? Well, this is a brief introduction into some of the engineering required to precisely point a 20 ton telescope while flying at over 40 thousand feet in the stratosphere. We'll explore the fundamentals of torque, balancing, and control. At this site you will learn how and why the SOFIA telescope is balanced and how to build your own desktop balanced system which can be controlled with a basic microprocessor, light sensors and standard cooling fans. You will learn important physical principles, and learn how to perform experiments testing these principles in class, but we suggest that first you cover the basics of physics and astronomy, so you can see how they apply to SOFIA. The basics, including the special requirements for pointing the SOFIA telescope are covered under background. The classroom projects which will help you to understand what is required to point and track a star using the SOFIA telescope are under experiments. |
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