X-ray astronomy project photos

Paul Vanden Bout writes, "From 1967-70 I was at Columbia U., first as a postdoc and then as an Asst. Prof. Roger Angel and I shared an office. We were both in Robert Novick’s research group, working on x-ray astronomy projects. These slides are of the launch of Angel’s payload, an x-ray polarimeter. The launch was successful and he got a measure of the polarization of x-rays emitted by the Crab Nebula. The experiment was the idea of Lo Woltjer, chairman of the Columbia Astronomy Department. Slides 1-3 are of the launch towers. The payload was carried above the atmosphere by a Nike rocket. A JATO booster pushed the rocket up the tower rails. A wire tied to the rails was thereby pulled out of a valve, releasing fuel and oxidizer to the Nike rocket motor. Ignition was immediate."

Papers of Paul A. Vanden Bout

NRAO/AUI/NSF

Still Image

PVB-rocket-xray-apr69-3.jpg

Slide

1969-04

See also 19 8x10 color prints of the launch experiment.

Photographs Series