Thermal Infrared Sky Background for a High-Arctic Mountain Observatory
Nighttime zenith sky spectral brightness in the 3.3 to 20 micron wavelength region is reported for an observatory site nearby Eureka, on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian High Arctic. Measurements derive from an automated Fourier-transform spectrograph which operated continuously there over three con...
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ftdatacite:10.48550/arxiv.1608.07515 2023-05-15T14:57:13+02:00 Thermal Infrared Sky Background for a High-Arctic Mountain Observatory Steinbring, Eric 2016 https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1608.07515 https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.07515 unknown arXiv https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/129/971/015003 arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics astro-ph.IM FOS Physical sciences article-journal Article ScholarlyArticle Text 2016 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1608.07515 https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/129/971/015003 2022-04-01T11:15:15Z Nighttime zenith sky spectral brightness in the 3.3 to 20 micron wavelength region is reported for an observatory site nearby Eureka, on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian High Arctic. Measurements derive from an automated Fourier-transform spectrograph which operated continuously there over three consecutive winters. During that time the median through the most transparent portion of the Q window was 460 Jy/square-arcsec, falling below 32 Jy/square-arcsec in N band, and to sub-Jansky levels by M and shortwards; reaching only 36 mJy/square-arcsec within L. Nearly six decades of twice-daily balloonsonde launches from Eureka, together with contemporaneous meteorological data plus a simple model allows characterization of background stability and extrapolation into K band. This suggests the study location has dark skies across the whole thermal infrared spectrum, typically sub-200 micro-Jy/square-arcsec at 2.4 microns. That background is comparable to South Pole, and more than an order of magnitude less than estimates for the best temperate astronomical sites, all at much higher elevation. Considerations relevant to future facilities, including for polar transient surveys, are discussed. : 9 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in PASP Text Arctic Ellesmere Island South pole DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Arctic Ellesmere Island South Pole Eureka ENVELOPE(-85.940,-85.940,79.990,79.990) |
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DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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language |
unknown |
topic |
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics astro-ph.IM FOS Physical sciences |
spellingShingle |
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics astro-ph.IM FOS Physical sciences Steinbring, Eric Thermal Infrared Sky Background for a High-Arctic Mountain Observatory |
topic_facet |
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics astro-ph.IM FOS Physical sciences |
description |
Nighttime zenith sky spectral brightness in the 3.3 to 20 micron wavelength region is reported for an observatory site nearby Eureka, on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian High Arctic. Measurements derive from an automated Fourier-transform spectrograph which operated continuously there over three consecutive winters. During that time the median through the most transparent portion of the Q window was 460 Jy/square-arcsec, falling below 32 Jy/square-arcsec in N band, and to sub-Jansky levels by M and shortwards; reaching only 36 mJy/square-arcsec within L. Nearly six decades of twice-daily balloonsonde launches from Eureka, together with contemporaneous meteorological data plus a simple model allows characterization of background stability and extrapolation into K band. This suggests the study location has dark skies across the whole thermal infrared spectrum, typically sub-200 micro-Jy/square-arcsec at 2.4 microns. That background is comparable to South Pole, and more than an order of magnitude less than estimates for the best temperate astronomical sites, all at much higher elevation. Considerations relevant to future facilities, including for polar transient surveys, are discussed. : 9 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in PASP |
format |
Text |
author |
Steinbring, Eric |
author_facet |
Steinbring, Eric |
author_sort |
Steinbring, Eric |
title |
Thermal Infrared Sky Background for a High-Arctic Mountain Observatory |
title_short |
Thermal Infrared Sky Background for a High-Arctic Mountain Observatory |
title_full |
Thermal Infrared Sky Background for a High-Arctic Mountain Observatory |
title_fullStr |
Thermal Infrared Sky Background for a High-Arctic Mountain Observatory |
title_full_unstemmed |
Thermal Infrared Sky Background for a High-Arctic Mountain Observatory |
title_sort |
thermal infrared sky background for a high-arctic mountain observatory |
publisher |
arXiv |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1608.07515 https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.07515 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-85.940,-85.940,79.990,79.990) |
geographic |
Arctic Ellesmere Island South Pole Eureka |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Ellesmere Island South Pole Eureka |
genre |
Arctic Ellesmere Island South pole |
genre_facet |
Arctic Ellesmere Island South pole |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/129/971/015003 |
op_rights |
arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1608.07515 https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873/129/971/015003 |
_version_ |
1766329311352061952 |