BEFS: Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectra from ORFEUS-SPAS Missions

The ORFEUS-SPAS I and II space shuttle missions in 1993 and 1996 collected this data. The Berkeley Extreme and Far-UV Spectrometer (BEFS) returned high-resolution (/3000) FUV spectra (900-1200 Å) of 75 astrophysical objects from the first flight and more than 100 from the second. EUV spectra (400-900 Å) were obtained for a subset of these targets by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Use Cases

• Modeling stellar atmospheres based on high-resolution far-ultraviolet spectra.
• Analyzing interstellar medium composition using extreme ultraviolet spectral lines.
• Comparing spectral characteristics across different astrophysical object classes.
• Calibrating or validating theoretical spectral models for specific wavelength ranges.

Strengths

• High-resolution spectra with a resolution of /3000.
• Covers at least 175 unique astrophysical objects across two missions.
• Data spans two specific ultraviolet wavelength ranges (900-1200 Å and 400-900 Å).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data format is BIN, which may require specialized tools for access and analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the Berkeley Extreme and Far-UV Spectrometer (BEFS) instrument flown on ORFEUS-SPAS I and II space shuttle missions.

Time Range

1993, 1996

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 16:58:39.999312; freshness should be verified.