Preliminary Results from the Spring 2010 Balloon Campaign of the Nuclear Compton Telescope

The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT) is a balloon-borne telescope designed to study astrophysical sources of gamma-ray emission with high spectral resolution, moderate angular resolution, and novel sensitivity to gamma-ray polarization. The heart of NCT is a compact array of cross-strip germanium detectors allowing for wide-field imaging with excellent efficiency from 0.2-10 MeV. Before 2010, NCT had flown successfully on two conventional balloon flights in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The third flight was attempted in Spring 2010 from Alice Springs, Australia, but there was a launch accident that caused major payload damage and prohibited a balloon flight. The same system configuration enables us to extend our current results to wider phase space with pre-flight calibrations in 2010 campaign. Here we summarize the design, the performance of instrument, the pre-flight calibrations, and preliminary results we have obtained so far.