Reflective all-sky thermal infrared cloud imager

Redman, Brian J.; Shaw, Joseph A.; Nugent, Paul W.; Clark, R. Trevor; Piazzolla, Sabino

doi:10.1364/OE.26.011276

Title: Reflective all-sky thermal infrared cloud imager

Journal Article · Tue Apr 17 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Optics Express

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.26.011276· OSTI ID:1438247

Redman, Brian J. ^[1];

^[2]; Nugent, Paul W. ^[3]; Clark, R. Trevor ^[4]; Piazzolla, Sabino ^[5]

Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States). Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept.; Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States). College of Optical Sciences
Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States). Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept.
Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States). Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept.; NWB Sensors, Inc., Bozeman, MT (United States)
Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States). Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept.; Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab.

A reflective all-sky imaging system has been built using a long-wave infrared microbolometer camera and a reflective metal sphere. This compact system was developed for measuring spatial and temporal patterns of clouds and their optical depth in support of applications including Earth-space optical communications. The camera is mounted to the side of the reflective sphere to leave the zenith sky unobstructed. The resulting geometric distortion is removed through an angular map derived from a combination of checkerboard-target imaging, geometric ray tracing, and sun-location-based alignment. A tape of high-emissivity material on the side of the reflector acts as a reference that is used to estimate and remove thermal emission from the metal sphere. In conclusion, once a bias that is under continuing study was removed, sky radiance measurements from the all-sky imager in the 8-14 μm wavelength range agreed to within 0.91 W/(m² sr) of measurements from a previously calibrated, lens-based infrared cloud imager over its 110° field of view.

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Research Organization:: Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF); US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); Montana Space Grant Consortium (MSGC); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASAJ)

Grant/Contract Number:: FA9550-14-1-0140; ARC-1108427; AC05-76RL01830

OSTI ID:: 1438247

Journal Information:: Optics Express, Vol. 26, Issue 9; ISSN 1094-4087

Publisher:: Optical Society of America (OSA)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 15 works

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Cloud fraction determined by thermal infrared and visible all-sky cameras Aebi, Christine; Gröbner, Julian; Kämpfer, Niklaus Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, Vol. 11, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5549-2018	journal	January 2018

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