The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT) is a balloon-borne Compton telescope to observe the gamma-ray sky in the energy range from a few hundred keV to several MeV. Its main goals are to improve the understanding of Galactic nucleosynthesis, gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, black holes, and more.
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Instrumentation
The Compton telescope uses an array of twelve Germanium detectors with high spectral resolution to detect gamma rays. On its bottom half the detector is surrounded by a Bismuth germanate scintillator to shield it from atmospheric gamma rays. The telescope has an overall field of view (FOV) of 25% of the sky.
Flights
Since low-to-medium-energy gamma rays are only detectable from above the atmosphere, NCT is launched with a large 1-million m3 Helium balloon into the stratosphere. So far NCT had two successful and one unsuccessful balloon campaigns: