The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) is a 6-metre diameter millimetre-wave telescope located in the Chilean Andes. It is designed to observe the small scale features in the Cosmic Microwave Background. In addition to constraining cosmological parameters through its measurements of the CMB angular power spectrum, ACT also detects massive high redshift galaxy clusters through the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. ACTpol is a polarization-sensitive reincarnation of ACT with dramatically increased sensitivity.
Bicep2 is a CMB Polarimeter which observes the sky at degree scales using pairs of Transition-edge sensing (TES) superconducting bolometers operating at 150 GHz. The thumbnail shows one quarter of the focal plane. The instrument operated from 2010 to 2012. Analysis of BICEP2 data is well underway. Results from the full three year data set are coming soon!
The Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a 2-metre diameter submillimetre-wave telescope the observes from an altitude of ~40 km. It is designed to study star-forming galaxies in the early Universe. The submillimetre camera used by BLAST is based on the one developed for Herschel/SPIRE.
The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is a radio telescope designed to measure Baryon Acoustic Oscillations by mapping the three-dimensional distribution of neutral hydrogen gas in the universe. A pathfinder telescope, 1/7th the collecting area of the full scale instrument, is currently operating at the DRAO.
The Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) is one of three instruments on board European Space Agency s Herschel Space Observatory. It has two observing modes, photometery and spectrometry, covering 200–670 microns. We are part of the Guaranteed Time project HerMES, the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey, designed to make large, deep maps of the extragalactic sky using SPIRE in photometry mode.
SCUBA-2 is a new submillimetre camera on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. It is the successsor to the very succesful SCUBA camera, which made pioneering observations in extragalactic (and Galactic) submillimetre science.
Spider is a new balloon-borne polarimeter designed to detect primordial gravity waves caused by cosmic inflation. It does this by measuring the B-mode polarisation of the cosmic microwave background.
The Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) is a NASA satellite designed to measure anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. It launched in June 2001 and completed operations in August 2010.