Contributions of the OH airglow to space object irradiance

John Gruninger; James W. Duff; James H. Brown

doi:10.1117/12.738362

16 October 2007 Contributions of the OH airglow to space object irradiance

John Gruninger, James W. Duff, James H. Brown

Proceedings Volume 6745, Remote Sensing of Clouds and the Atmosphere XII; 67451N (2007) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.738362
Event: SPIE Remote Sensing, 2007, Florence, Italy

Abstract

We investigated the contributions of the hydroxyl (OH) airglow to the illumination of resident space objects. During nighttime, in a moonless sky, the airglow is the largest contributor to the sky brightness in the visible (vis), the near-infrared (NIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) spectral region. The dominant contributors to the airglow are vibrationally excited hydroxyl radicals, OH(ν). The radicals are formed in vibrational states up to υ=9 by the reaction of hydrogen atoms with ozone. The strong emissions, known as Meinel emissions, are sequences with σν= 1-6. Emissions with υ = 3, 4, 5 and 6 occur in the visible and NIR between .4 and 1.0 µm. From 1.0 to 2.5 µm there are very strong emissions from the δν= 2 sequences. The σν= 1 emissions extend into the thermal infrared to 4.5 μm. In this work, we considered four band passes, a vis-NIR band pass, two SABER band passes centered at 1.6 and 2.0 μm, respectively, and a broad band pass around 2.7 µm. SAMM2 was utilized to compute spectra and line of sight radiances. We used line of sight (LOS) radiances to compute the irradiance on a space object that was taken as a flat plate with a Lambertian surface reflectance. Profiles of irradiance versus orientation were calculated. The OH airglow will illuminate a facet even if it is pointing somewhat upward. However, the irradiance in the 2.7 μm band pass comes almost entirely from the atmosphere in the low altitude and the earth emission.

Citation Download Citation

John Gruninger, James W. Duff, and James H. Brown "Contributions of the OH airglow to space object irradiance", Proc. SPIE 6745, Remote Sensing of Clouds and the Atmosphere XII, 67451N (16 October 2007); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.738362

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available