HR: 1340h
AN: SA53A-1163    [Abstracts]
TI: Absolute Intensities of the OH Nightglow Emission
AU: * Cosby, P C
EM: philip.cosby@sri.com
AF: Molecular Physics Lab, SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 United States
AU: Slanger, T G
EM: tom.slanger@sri.com
AF: Molecular Physics Lab, SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 United States
AB: Flux-calibrated high-resolution spectra of OH emissions in the night sky over the spectral range of 314 - 1054 nm have been acquired from two sources: (a) the ESI spectrograph on the Keck II telescope at Mauna Kea with a spectral resolution of 6000 and a temporal resolution of 3000 seconds and (b) coadded spectra (1) from the UVES spectrograph on the VLT (Kueyen) telescope at Cerro Paranal with a spectral resolution of 50000. Emission from the OH X²Π(v'=3-9) Meinel bands are prominent in the spectra allowing absolute intensities to be measured for discrete rotational lines in the main rotational branches for 16 vibrational bands in the ESI spectra (Δv = -6 to -3) and 20 vibrational bands in the UVES spectrum (Δv = -7 to -3). The bands are analyzed to obtain their apparent rotational intensity distributions and correlated to the contemporaneous emissions of atomic oxygen and in the O₂ atmospheric bands. Comparisons are made between the emission intensities and distributions observed in the high rotational levels of OH and previous observations. (2,3) This work was partially supported by NSF grant ATM-0139344. (1) R. W. Hanuschik, Astron. Astrophys. 112, 1157 (2003).
(2) W. R. Pendleton, P. J. Espy, and M. R. Hammond, J. Geophys. Res. 98, 11567 (1993).
(3) J. A. Dodd, et. al., Geophys. Res. Let. 20, 305 (1993).
DE: 3332 Mesospheric dynamics
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005