The Near-Infrared Sky Emission at the South Pole in Winter

• Main Authors: Phillips Burton Ashley, A. Phillips, M. G. Burton, M. C. B. Ashley, J. W. V. Storey, J. P. Lloyd, J. Bally
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1999
• Subjects: Antarctic; South Pole; The Antarctic; Antarc*; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.27.8647; http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~mgb/Antbib/irps.ps.gz

The antarctic plateau provides superb sites for infrared astronomy, a result of the combination of low temperature, low levels of precipitable water vapour, high altitude and atmospheric stability. We have undertaken measurements of the sky background from 1--5 m at the South Pole, using a single channel InSb spectrometer, the `IRPS', during the winter (dark) period of 1995. The IRPS records the DC level of the sky flux through a 4 ffi beam and a variety of broad band and narrow (1%) band filters. It can be scanned in elevation from horizon to horizon through the zenith. We find a reduction in the background of thermal emission of 20--100 times from mid-latitude sites such as Siding Spring and Mauna Kea, with typical background levels of 80--200 Jy/arcsec 2 at 2.43 m, 100--300 mJy/arcsec 2 at 3.6 m and 0.5 Jy/arcsec 2 at 4.8 m. Airglow emission contributes significantly to the sky flux shortward of 2.4 m, which is why the K dark (2.27--2.45 m) band emission does not drop to th.