  The observational and operational efficiency of the TIFR 1 meter balloon
borne far infrared telescope has been improved by incorporating a multielement
solid state optical photometer (SSOP) at the Cassegrain focus of the telescope.
The SSOP is based on a 1-D linear photo diode array (PDA). The online and
offline processing schemes of the PDA signals which have been developed, lead
to improvement in the determination of absolute telescope aspect ($\sim$
0\farcm8), which is very crucial for carrying out the observations as well as
offline analysis. The SSOP and its performance during a recent balloon flight
are presented here.
