A limb-viewing spatial heterodyne interferometer is developed to observe temperature in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. This can be used to measure atmospheric waves with small vertical wavelengths. The instrument measures the O2 atmospheric A-band airglow emission in the near-infrared. The emission is visible during day- and night-time, allowing for a continuous observation. The image is taken by a 2d detector. The optical system conserves the 2d spatial temperature information. The spectral information is superimposed in horizontal detector direction. The usual processing thus uses the horizontal detector dimension to resolve the spectral while averaging the underlying spatial information. The altitude coverage is given by the vertical detector direction, resulting in a finely resolved vertical temperature profile for one image. In light of this, we explore a novel processing approach that exploits the spatial information along the horizontal axis as well. We propose to split the interferogram into two halves, mirror it around the center and perform a retrieval on both sides separately, obtaining two spatial cross tracks of independent temperature data. Assuming that the instrument views backward, consecutive measurements give along track sampling. Combining this with the split interferogram method and the usual fine vertical resolution of the instrument, it provides 3d information on the atmospheric temperature field which allows to obtain some information on 3d propagation characteristics of atmospheric waves. In our research, we delve into the viability, advantages and constraints of the split interferogram approach. We will discuss the impact of horizontal temperature variation onto the retrieval result. We show the impact of background temperatures on the retrieval. Furthermore, we discuss the influence of apodization onto the retrieval of split interferograms.
Spatial heterodyne spectroscopy has become increasingly attractive for remote sensing of the atmosphere from microsatellites. Its outstanding light gathering power makes this technology particularly suitable for the detection of faint signals with minimal volume requirements. This paper is about an instrument, which was designed to measure the spectral shape of an atmospheric oxygen emission. The near infrared emission is observed in limb viewing geometry from space. The optical setup and specific characteristics of the design are presented. A focus is on the straylight behaviour of the system. In-field and out-of-field contributions are discussed. Straylight kernels are applied to expected background radiation fields with regard to performance-limiting factors of the system.
KEYWORDS: Device simulation, Signal to noise ratio, Monte Carlo methods, Interferometers, Heterodyning, Temperature metrology, Spatial frequencies, Data modeling
Gravity waves play a major role in mesospheric and lower thermospheric (MLT) dynamics and global observations of gravity waves in this region are of particular interest. To this end, a limb sounding spatial heterodyne interferometer (SHI) is used to retrieve temperature profiles which can be subsequently used to determine wave parameters. It resolves rotational structures of the O2 atmospheric A-band airglow emission in the near-infrared. It is visible during day- and night-time, allowing a continuous observation. The image is taken by a 2D detector plane of 900 × 900 pixels. The horizontal axis is a superposition of spectral and spatial information; the vertical axis corresponds to different tangent altitudes. We propose to split the interferogram into two halves and perform a retrieval on both sides separately, thus obtaining two spatial tracks of independent temperature data. This can be utilized to obtain some information on 3D propagation characteristics of gravity waves. The feasibility and subsequent concerns of the practical usage of the interferogram split will be discussed.
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