Governing Council of the University of Toronto

Published purpose

Stratospheric balloon telescopes, operating above 99.5% of the Earth's atmosphere, avoid atmospheric distortions present in terrestrial ground based telescopes, thus improving the observation of stars. The project goal is to repair and upgrade the Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) telescope to improve, in particular, star camera performance and automatic telescope focus/alignment. The SuperBIT telescope will provide large images of distant galaxies with detail comparable to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. This project will pave the way for future telescopes with even greater capabilities and will additionally explore other applications, including earth observation.