Active Image Stabilization for Shuttle-Based Payloads
This paper presents a pointing performance analysis of the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) as a generic example illustrating the fundamental dynamics and control problems related to optical instruments that are, or will be, flown mounted on the Space Shuttle. The disturbance level on the Shuttle, and slew requirements of the payload itself, along with the limitations of the present instrument pointing system (IPS) is found to seriously limit the pointing accuracy of optical payloads. The implementation of an active image stabilization (AIS) system, using an active secondary mirror, is shown to provide substantial improvement in performance. Two control strategies are presented, using IPS-mounted rate integrating gyros only, or in conjunction with a focal plane sensor feedback loop.
Control system designs for the shuttle infrared telescope facility
The Shuttle Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) image motion compensation system is described in detail and performance is analyzed with respect to system noise inputs, environmental disturbances, and error sources such as bending and feedforward scale factor. It is concluded that the SIRTF accuracy and stability requirements can be met with this design.
A new optical catalog of quasi-stellar objects
The paper contains a catalog of all known quasi-stellar objects with measured emission redshifts, and BL Lac objects, complete to September 1986. The catalog contains 3681 objects, comprising 3594 QSOs and 87 BL Lac objects. The catalog and references contain extensive information on names, positions, magnitudes, colors, emission-line redshifts, absorption, variability, polarization, and X-ray, radio, and infrared data. A key in the form of subsidiary tables enables the reader to relate the name of a given object to its coordinate name, which is used throughout the compilation. Plots of the distribution on the sky, the Hubble diagram, the apparent magnitude distribution, and the emission redshift distribution are also given. 1775 references.