SOFIA projects

Since 2012, I have regularly used the (up)GREAT instrument onboard the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a collaboration between NASA and DLR/DSI. My open time projects include the study of massive star-forming regions, for example S106, or the peculiar proplyd-like object proplyd 7 in Cygnus, and the diffuse interstellar medium, which led to the first detection of the CII 158 micron line in an intermediate velocity cloud using the example of Draco.

In January 2019, our SOFIA legacy proposal FEEDBACK (PIs Alexander Tielens and myself) obtained 96 hours of observing time using upGREAT on SOFIA. The objective of this project is to map 11 Galactic massive star-forming regions in the [C II] 158 micron and [O I] 63 micron lines.