Development of the NuSTAR Optics and Highlights from the NuSTAR Galactic Plane Survey

The speaker will present a description of the development of the optics for the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) experiment. NuSTAR is an Explorer class mission, and its twin telescopes are the first capable of focusing hard X-rays. NuSTAR was launched in June of 2012. NuSTAR operates in the 3-79 keV energy band, and provides arcminute imaging capability. The optics contain several notable innovations, including the first use of thermally-slumped glass optics, and a novel glass mounting scheme that substitutes a mechanical alignment procedure for an optical one. Given the high angular resolution of NuSTAR, a major goal was the study of the crowded environment around the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center. The speaker will present some of the highlights of the first 3 years of investigations in the Galactic Center. For fun he will also present some recent work on the tentative discovery of hard X-rays from the planet Jupiter.