Atmospheric airglow imaging with CCDs

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:227945

Swenson, G; Mende, S ^[1]

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1. Lockheed Research and Development, Palo Alto, CA (United States)

Airglow imaging instrumentation has been developed to provide quality imagery of airglow in the visible and near IR wavelengths. The lower thermosphere airglow layers emit between 85 and 102 km altitude. The layers are structured with nonuniformity in the horizontal dimension as a result of Atmospheric Gravity Waves (AGWs) passing through the layer and disturbing the nominal recombination processes producing intensity and temperature modulations. Imagers have been developed to measure the AGW-produced airglow non-uniformities. The instrumentation combines large format, low noise CCDs with large aperture optics for improved S/N images. In particular, the large dynamic range of the detectors provides information from the low intensity zenith sky and the bright, van Rhijn enhanced horizon simultaneously in all-sky fields. The imagers have been used effectively to identify AGW structure from a number of ground based facilities as well as a recent NSF sponsored aircraft campaign. Imagery from the OH Meinel bands and OI 5577 {angstrom} are presented. Discussions are also presented regarding Na 5896 {angstrom}, and O{sub 2} Atmospheric (0,1) band at 8650 {angstrom} emissions.

• OSTI ID: 227945
• Report Number(s): CONF-940723--; ISBN 0-8194-1590-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
AIRGLOW
CHARGE-COUPLED DEVICES
EMISSION SPECTRA
GRAVITY WAVES
HYDROXYL RADICALS
IMAGES
INFRARED RADIATION
SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO
THERMOSPHERE
VISIBLE RADIATION