High‐resolution terrestrial nightglow emission line atlas from UVES/VLT: Positions, intensities, and identifications for 2808 lines at 314–1043 nm

Abstract

[1] The atlas of terrestrial nightglow emission lines from spectra of the night sky obtained from the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) on the 8.2-m UT2 telescope at the Very Large Telescope (VLT), European Southern Observatory, Cerro Paranal, Chile, consists of 2808 line positions, line widths, and intensities over the 314-1043 nm spectral range (Hanuschik, 2003). These lines have been absolute intensity calibrated and measured at a spectral resolution (l/Dl) of $43,000-45,000. Presented here are spectroscopic identifications for 98% of the lines in the atlas, made primarily through comparisons with synthetic spectra of prominent OH and O 2 nightglow emission systems. The ability to simulate these systems successfully has shown that there are many additional lines that could be added to the atlas. We believe that all the O 2 and OH lines in the measured region can now be successfully modeled with an accuracy better than the instrumental spectral resolution.

Discovery of the FeO orange bands in the terrestrial night airglow spectrum obtained with OSIRIS on the Odin spacecraft

“…Each of the model spectra were convolved with the approximately 0.90 nm OSIRIS instrumental function before scaling to the observed spectrum. For the ultraviolet and blue spectral regions the O 2 Herzberg and Chamberlain band model is from the tabulations by Cosby et al [2006]. The model spectrum was scaled by comparison with the observed OSIRIS spectrum over the 350 to 400 nm region.…”

A GIANO-TNG high-resolution infrared spectrum of the airglow emission

“…The airglow lines at wavelengths 0.3-1.0 μm were thoroughly compiled and modelled using high resolution (R 10 5 ) data from HIRES-Keck and UVES-VLT; see e.g. Osterbrock et al (1998), Hanuschik (2003), Cosby et al (2006). The data in the near-infrared are much sparser and based on lower-resolution spectra, see e.g.…”

Photoemission Phenomena in the Solar System

“…At the Keck I telescope on Mauna Kea and the VLT in Chile, the echelle spectrographs produce high-quality spectra with broad wavelength coverage-from the ozone cut-off near 310 nm to the infrared at 1.05 µ-spectral resolution of 40,000-50,000, and the ability to detect lines with intensities less than 100 mR (Cosby and Slanger 2007). Thus, the best qualities of the various systems are brought together in such an instrument (Cosby et al 2006;Cosby and Slanger 2007).…”