6:15 PM - 7:30 PM
[PEM06-P07] Performance evaluation of low-cost airglow camera for mesospheric gravity wave measurements
Atmospheric gravity waves significantly contribute to the wind/thermal balances in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) through their vertical transport of horizontal momentum. It has been reported that the gravity wave momentum flux preferentially associated with the scale of the waves; the momentum fluxes of the waves with a horizontal scale of 10-100 km are particularly significant. Airglow imaging is a useful technique to observe two-dimensional structure of small-scale (<100 km) gravity waves in the MLT region and has been used to investigate global behavior of the waves. Recent studies with simultaneous/multiple airglow cameras have derived spatial extent of the MLT waves. Such network imaging observations are advantageous to ever better understanding of coupling between the lower and upper atmosphere via gravity waves.
In this study, we newly developed a low-cost airglow camera to enlarge the airglow imaging network (Optical Mesosphere and Thermosphere Imagers: OMTIs) operated by the Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory, Nagoya University. This camera has a fish-eye lens with a 185-deg field-of-view and equipped with a CCD video camera (WATEC WAT-910HX) ; the camera is small (W35.5 x H36.0 x D63.5 mm) and inexpensive, much more than the OMTI cameras, but has a highly sensitive CCD sensor with 768 x 494 pixels. OH airglow emissions are imaged at intervals of 4 sec with 4-sec exposure.
In this presentation, we will report some results of performance evaluation of this camera based on test observations at Shigaraki (35-deg N, 136-deg E), Japan, where is one of the OMTI station. By summing 15-images (i.e., 1-min composition of the images) we recognized clear gravity wave patterns in the images with comparable quality to the OMTI's image.
In this study, we newly developed a low-cost airglow camera to enlarge the airglow imaging network (Optical Mesosphere and Thermosphere Imagers: OMTIs) operated by the Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory, Nagoya University. This camera has a fish-eye lens with a 185-deg field-of-view and equipped with a CCD video camera (WATEC WAT-910HX) ; the camera is small (W35.5 x H36.0 x D63.5 mm) and inexpensive, much more than the OMTI cameras, but has a highly sensitive CCD sensor with 768 x 494 pixels. OH airglow emissions are imaged at intervals of 4 sec with 4-sec exposure.
In this presentation, we will report some results of performance evaluation of this camera based on test observations at Shigaraki (35-deg N, 136-deg E), Japan, where is one of the OMTI station. By summing 15-images (i.e., 1-min composition of the images) we recognized clear gravity wave patterns in the images with comparable quality to the OMTI's image.