CEDAR: Development of a Sky Light Extinction Monitor

在这笔拨款的支持下，PI将在CEDAR和其他现场站点建造和部署一个多波长、计算机控制和指向的恒星光度计，以监测气辉观测期间的天空状况。将获得包括水蒸气吸收波段在内的8个波长的大气消光数据。这些数据将允许校正气辉光度数据，以便在地球对流层中吸收。此外，还将监测每个波长的背景天空亮度。由于汞和钠在夜间被外界灯光强烈发射，两个波长将被设置在发射线上。被这种照明照亮的云产生了强烈的天空污染源，降低了夜空观测的质量。该仪器的结果对其他必须在无人驾驶自动模式下操作仪器的观测者来说是非常宝贵的。对消光数据进行校正后，观测结果与模型预测之间的一致性应该会更好；同样，各观察员的结果之间的一致性也应得到改善。将尽可能使用商用设备来缩短开发时间。所产生的数据集将提供给竞选观察员，并存入雪松数据库。

With support from this grant the PI will construct and deploy, at CEDAR and other field sites, a multiwavelength, computer controlled and pointed, stellar photometer to monitor the condition of the sky during airglow observations. Data will be obtained on atmospheric extinction at eight wavelengths including a water vapor absorption band. These data will permit the correction of airglow photometric data for absorption in the earth's troposphere. In addition, the background sky brightness will be monitored at each wavelength. Two wavelengths will be set at emission lines due to mercury and sodium which are emitted strongly by outside lights at night. Clouds illuminated by such lighting produces a strong source of sky pollution which reduces the quality of night sky observations. Results from this instrument will be invaluable to other observers who must operate their instrument in an unmanned automatic mode. With data corrected for extinction better agreement between observations and model predictions should result; likewise agreement between various observers' results should improve. Commercial devices will be used as far as possible to reduce development time. The resulting data set will be provided to campaign observers and will be deposited in the CEDAR data bank.