TY - JOUR
T1 - Optical night sky brightness measurements from the stratosphere
AU - Gill, Ajay
AU - Benton, Steven J.
AU - Brown, Anthony M.
AU - Clark, Paul
AU - Damaren, Christopher J.
AU - Eifler, Tim
AU - Fraisse, Aurelien A.
AU - Galloway, Mathew N.
AU - Hartley, John W.
AU - Holder, Bradley
AU - Huff, Eric M.
AU - Jauzac, Mathilde
AU - Jones, William C.
AU - Lagattuta, David
AU - Leung, Jason S.Y.
AU - Li, Lun
AU - Luu, Thuy Vy T.
AU - Massey, Richard J.
AU - McCleary, Jacqueline
AU - Mullaney, James
AU - Nagy, Johanna M.
AU - Netterfield, C. Barth
AU - Redmond, Susan
AU - Rhodes, Jason D.
AU - Romualdez, L. Javier
AU - Schmoll, Jürgen
AU - Shaaban, Mohamed M.
AU - Sirks, Ellen
AU - Sivanandam, Suresh
AU - Tam, Sut Ieng
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020. The American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - This paper presents optical night sky brightness measurements from the stratosphere using CCD images taken with the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT). The data used for estimating the backgrounds were obtained during three commissioning flights in 2016, 2018, and 2019 at altitudes ranging from 28 to 34 km above sea level. For a valid comparison of the brightness measurements from the stratosphere with measurements from mountain-top ground-based observatories (taken at zenith on the darkest moonless night at high Galactic and high ecliptic latitudes), the stratospheric brightness levels were zodiacal light and diffuse Galactic light subtracted, and the airglow brightness was projected to zenith. The stratospheric brightness was measured around 5.5 hr, 3 hr, and 2 hr before the local sunrise time in 2016, 2018, and 2019, respectively. The B, V, R, and I brightness levels in 2016 were 2.7, 1.0, 1.1, and 0.6 mag arcsec-2 darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The B, V, and R brightness levels in 2018 were 1.3, 1.0, and 1.3 mag arcsec-2 darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The U and I brightness levels in 2019 were 0.1 mag arcsec-2 brighter than the darkest ground-based measurements, whereas the B and V brightness levels were 0.8 and 0.6 mag arcsec-2 darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The lower sky brightness levels, stable photometry, and lower atmospheric absorption make stratospheric observations from a balloon-borne platform a unique tool for astronomy. We plan to continue this work in a future midlatitude long duration balloon flight with SuperBIT.
AB - This paper presents optical night sky brightness measurements from the stratosphere using CCD images taken with the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT). The data used for estimating the backgrounds were obtained during three commissioning flights in 2016, 2018, and 2019 at altitudes ranging from 28 to 34 km above sea level. For a valid comparison of the brightness measurements from the stratosphere with measurements from mountain-top ground-based observatories (taken at zenith on the darkest moonless night at high Galactic and high ecliptic latitudes), the stratospheric brightness levels were zodiacal light and diffuse Galactic light subtracted, and the airglow brightness was projected to zenith. The stratospheric brightness was measured around 5.5 hr, 3 hr, and 2 hr before the local sunrise time in 2016, 2018, and 2019, respectively. The B, V, R, and I brightness levels in 2016 were 2.7, 1.0, 1.1, and 0.6 mag arcsec-2 darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The B, V, and R brightness levels in 2018 were 1.3, 1.0, and 1.3 mag arcsec-2 darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The U and I brightness levels in 2019 were 0.1 mag arcsec-2 brighter than the darkest ground-based measurements, whereas the B and V brightness levels were 0.8 and 0.6 mag arcsec-2 darker than the darkest ground-based measurements. The lower sky brightness levels, stable photometry, and lower atmospheric absorption make stratospheric observations from a balloon-borne platform a unique tool for astronomy. We plan to continue this work in a future midlatitude long duration balloon flight with SuperBIT.
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-3881/abbffb
DO - 10.3847/1538-3881/abbffb
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85096778927
SN - 0004-6256
VL - 160
JO - Astronomical Journal
JF - Astronomical Journal
IS - 6
M1 - A14
ER -