Optical Night Sky Brightness Measurements from the Stratosphere
| Autor: | Ajay Gill, Aurelien A. Fraisse, Paul C. Clark, Jason Rhodes, Jürgen Schmoll, Eric Huff, Sut Ieng Tam, D. Lagattuta, Mohamed M. Shaaban, Suresh Sivanandam, Lun Li, Tim Eifler, C. Barth Netterfield, L. Javier Romualdez, Steven J. Benton, Christopher J. Damaren, Johanna Nagy, James Mullaney, Thuy Vy T. Luu, Anthony M. Brown, Susan Redmond, Jacqueline McCleary, Bradley Holder, Ellen Sirks, M. Galloway, Mathilde Jauzac, J. Hartley, Richard Massey, W. C. Jones, Jason S.-Y. Leung |
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| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
Brightness Zodiacal light 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Gegenschein Night sky Airglow FOS: Physical sciences Astronomy Astronomy and Astrophysics 01 natural sciences Photometry (optics) 13. Climate action Space and Planetary Science Sky brightness 0103 physical sciences Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) 010303 astronomy & astrophysics Stratosphere 0105 earth and related environmental sciences |
| Zdroj: | The Astronomical Journal, 2020, Vol.160(6), pp.266 [Peer Reviewed Journal] |
| ISSN: | 1538-3881 |
| DOI: | 10.3847/1538-3881/abbffb |
| Popis: | This paper presents optical night sky brightness measurements from the stratosphere using CCD images taken with the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT). The data used for estimating the backgrounds were obtained during three commissioning flights in 2016, 2018, and 2019 at altitudes ranging from 28 km to 34 km above sea level. For a valid comparison of the brightness measurements from the stratosphere with measurements from mountain-top ground-based observatories (taken at zenith on the darkest moonless night at high Galactic and high ecliptic latitudes), the stratospheric brightness levels were zodiacal light and diffuse Galactic light subtracted, and the airglow brightness was projected to zenith. The stratospheric brightness was measured around 5.5 hours, 3 hours, and 2 hours before the local sunrise time in 2016, 2018, and 2019 respectively. The $B$, $V$, $R$, and $I$ brightness levels in 2016 were 2.7, 1.0, 1.1, and 0.6 mag arcsec$^{-2}$ darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The $B$, $V$, and $R$ brightness levels in 2018 were 1.3, 1.0, and 1.3 mag arcsec$^{-2}$ darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The $U$ and $I$ brightness levels in 2019 were 0.1 mag arcsec$^{-2}$ brighter than the darkest ground-based measurements, whereas the $B$ and $V$ brightness levels were 0.8 and 0.6 mag arcsec$^{-2}$ darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The lower sky brightness levels, stable photometry, and lower atmospheric absorption make stratospheric observations from a balloon-borne platform a unique tool for astronomy. We plan to continue this work in a future mid-latitude long duration balloon flight with SuperBIT. Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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