Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX)

Mission Characteristics

Lifetime: 1996-1997
Wavelength:
  • A (8.28 µm)
  • C (12.13 µm)
  • D (14.65 µm)
  • E (21.3 µm)
Area Coverage:
  • 0 < l < 360, |b| < 5
  • IRAS gaps
  • select targets
Instruments:
  • SPIRIT III infrared telescope (33-cm aperture)
  • solid hydrogen-cooled five line-scanned infrared focal plane arrays
Science Products Generated:
  • Survey images and source catalogs
  • deeper raster scans of selected star formation regions and galaxies
  • raster scans of the IRAS gaps
Canonical Paper: Egan et al. (2003), Air Force Research Laboratory Technical Report AFRL-VS-TR-2003-1589
Please include the following standard acknowledgment in any published material that makes use of MSX data products:
"This research made use of data products from the Midcourse Space Experiment. Processing of the data was funded by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization with additional support from NASA Office of Space Science. This research has also made use of the NASA/ IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration."

IRSA Services

MSX Image Server Browse MSX images with catalog overlays.
MSX Images (using DCE) Browse MSX image data.
MSX Cutouts Use IRSA's Image Cutouts Service to generate small "cutout" FITS (and JPEG) images from the MSX image collection.
Catalog Search Access available catalogs.

Other Resources:

MSX point Source Catalog Version 2.3
Explanatory Guide
Download in PDF format.
MSX point Source Catalog Version 1.2
Explanatory Guide
Superceded by V2.3 guide, but still contains useful information in the appendices that is not duplicated in the newer document.