An observational model of the zodiacal light brightness distribution

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Interplanetary Medium, Zodiacal Light, Solar System:General

Scientific paper

The zodiacal light (ZL) has been newly derived from photo-polarimetric nightsky observations at Mt. Haleakala, Hawaii on the night of 21/22 August, 1968. The resulting ZL brightness map has spatial resolution 2°×2° and covers most of the sky that can be reached from the ground, extending ecliptic longitude over 30°<=Λ-Λsolar<=330° and latitude -90°<=β<=90°. By utilizing a semi-empirical method for correcting the atmospheric diffuse light and an improved technique for making individual star subtraction, we have reduced the relative uncertainty in the ZL brightness from the previous level of ~20% down to ~10%, which helps to reveal small scale structures in the observed brightness distribution. Since the primary data base employed in our reduction was restricted to the observations over a single night, the resulting map demonstrates asymmetries in the ZL brightness distribution over the morning and evening sides and also over the northern and southern ecliptic hemispheres. From these asymmetries we were able to locate the plane of maximum density of interplanetary dust particles at inclination i~=2° and longitude of ascending node Ω~=80°. To improve and homogenize the sky coverage the primary data base was then supplemented with observations on six additional nights, four in August and two in February of the same year. By folding the ZL brightness in the northern and southern hemispheres and also in the morning and evening sides upon each other, we have constructed an observational model of the ZL brightness in 2° intervals of ecliptic coordinates.

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