A novel apparatus to measure reflected sunlight from the Moon

Claire E. Cramer; Gerald T. Fraser; Keith R. Lykke; Allan W. Smith; John T. Woodward

doi:10.1117/12.2027204

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19 September 2013 A novel apparatus to measure reflected sunlight from the Moon

Claire E. Cramer, Gerald T. Fraser, Keith R. Lykke, Allan W. Smith, John T. Woodward

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Proceedings Volume 8867, Infrared Remote Sensing and Instrumentation XXI; 88670W (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2027204
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2013, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

We describe a new apparatus for measuring the spectral irradiance of the Moon at visible wavelengths. Our effort builds upon the United States Geological Survey’s highly successful Robotic Lunar Observatory (ROLO), which determined a precise model for the time-dependent irradiance of the Moon from six years of observations obtained with an imaging telescope equipped with a set of narrow-band filters. The ROLO Irradiance Model allows the Moon to be used as a radiometric reference for tracking changes in the absolute responsivity of near-infrared to visible satellite sensors as a function of time to better than 1 %. The goal of the present effort is to improve the absolute radiometric accuracy of the ROLO model, presently estimated at 5 % - 10 %, to better than 1 %. Our approach, which uses an integrating sphere at the focal plane of a telescope to direct light from the integrated lunar disk into a stable spectrograph, also eliminates the need to interpolate between the 32 visible and near-infrared bands measured by ROLO. The new measurements will allow weather, climate, land-surface, and defense satellites to use the Moon as an absolute calibration reference, potentially reducing the impact of disruptions in continuous long-term climate data records caused by gaps in satellitesensor coverage.

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Claire E. Cramer, Gerald T. Fraser, Keith R. Lykke, Allan W. Smith, and John T. Woodward "A novel apparatus to measure reflected sunlight from the Moon", Proc. SPIE 8867, Infrared Remote Sensing and Instrumentation XXI, 88670W (19 September 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2027204

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