ABSTRACT

The joint U.S. and German Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy
(SOFIA) is a 2.5-meter infrared airborne telescope in a Boeing 747-SP
that began science flights in 2010. Flying in the stratosphere at altitudes as
high as 45,000 feet, SOFIA will be used to conduct photometric,
spectroscopic, and imaging observations at wavelengths from 0.3 microns to
1.9 millimeters with an average transmission of greater than 80 percent.
SOFIA’s first-generation instrument complement includes high speed
photometers, broadband imagers, moderate resolution spectrographs capable
of resolving broad features due to dust and large molecules, and high
resolution spectrometers suitable for kinematic studies of molecular and
atomic gas lines at km/s resolution. With its access to regions of the
atmosphere that are opaque from the ground, its rapid and global
deployability, and its ability to incorporate new and updated instruments,
SOFIA will play an important role studying a variety of key astrophysical
problems well into the first third of the 21st century. We describe the
SOFIA facility and outline the opportunities for observations by the
general scientific community and future instrumentation developments.
First-light images obtained on May 26, 2010 with the FORCAST imager will
be shown. Some early science images will be shown.