Arome, a balloon-borne instrument for astronomical near-infrared spectrophotometry

We present here the French balloon-borne experiment named AROME. This astronomical instrument is specifically designed for the detection of near infrared emission bands (?=3–12µm) from extended sources of low surface brightness with an angular resolution of 0.5°. The rms sensitivity achieved is of the order of 10-8 Wm-2sr-1, in terms of the power radiated in the 3.3µm band. We recall that this program led to the first detection of the 3.3µm feature in the spectrum of the diffuse galactic emission. The scientific results were presented and interpreted in Paper I, Giard et al., 1989. Future work will include both the observation of fainter objects at 3.3µm and the detection of other emission bands at 6.2 and 11.3µm.