Other
Scientific paper
May 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agusmsm51b..02p&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2008, abstract #SM51B-02
Other
0310 Airglow And Aurora, 0358 Thermosphere: Energy Deposition (3369), 2407 Auroral Ionosphere (2704), 3369 Thermospheric Dynamics (0358)
Scientific paper
Imaging the aurora, especially imaging the aurora with sufficient spectral, spatial and temporal resolution to meet the scientific community's desires and national needs, can be a difficult and costly problem if we follow the old paradigm of building a sensor or sensor suite that is all things to all users. In this talk I consider what can be done within the constraints of a relatively low cost mission design. To begin the process we have to start with questions: What are the scientific questions that require auroral imagery? What has to be imaged and why? What are the temporal and spatial resolution requirements? How can this be achieved? What does the instrument tradespace look like? Rather than posit a scientific question, I'll ask the reader of this abstract to consider a few questions. Is it important to be able to see the entire aurora at once (very important or is just enough to get the boundary and a good estimate of the precipitating particle power)? How much time do you have to be able to have auroral imagery (constantly monitoring or often enough to have a reasonable chance of observing a particular kind of event or only in concert with another measurement)? What kind of temporal resolution is required (fractions of a seconds, seconds, a minute)? What kind of spatial resolution is required (fine scale high resolution of the brightest features or general morphology and features)? How much of the data are you prepared to handle (every bit costs at the spacecraft and on the ground so how much do you really need)? Do you need to be able to image the sunlit aurora? What energy range of precipitating particles do you need to be able to image (or at least be sensitive to)? How long a data set do you need (as long as possible, a solar cycle, long enough to see superstorms, substorms)? These questions and many others determine what we must do in order to provide auroral imagery to meet a given users needs. We can not, as a community, afford to "require" that the superset of all these "requirements" be addressed. In the current funding environment it just won't happen. It is certainly worth considering the ensemble of instruments that provide auroral imaging. These instruments range from ground-based (riometers, photometers, cameras, and all-sky cameras, etc) to low earth orbit satellite imagers to high orbit cameras. There are at least two challenges: first is that they may "image" the aurora but the images aren't of the same physical phenomena or interpretable as the same quantity and the second is that is the number of sensors increases the problems of interoperability and ease of use become more difficult to address. The concept of the virtual observatory can certainly provide an enhanced user experience. New and innovative imaging systems must be developed and existing systems (such as the imagers on DMSP) must have identified follow-ons.
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