Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2011-08-03
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
21 pages, 5 tables, and 1 figure, to be published in AdSpR
Scientific paper
The potential effect of the lunar exosphere on the near-ultraviolet sky background emission is predicted for Lunar-based Ultraviolet Telescope (LUT: a funded Chinese scientific payload for the Chang'e-III mission). Using the upper limit on the OH concentration inferred from the recent MIP CHACE results, our calculations show that the sky brightness due to the illuminated exosphere is $<8.7\ \mathrm{photon\ s^{-1}\ cm^{-2}\ arcsec^{-2}}$ within the wavelength range 245-340 nm. By evaluating the signal-to-noise ratios of observations of an AB=13 mag point source at a series of sky background levels, our analysis indicates that the detection performance of LUT can be moderately degraded by the lunar exosphere emission in most cases. An AB=13 mag point source can still be detected by the telescope at a signal-to-noise ratio more than 8 when the OH concentration is less than $2\times10^8\ \mathrm{molecules\ cm^{-3}}$. However, the effect on the performance is considerable when the exosphere is as dense as suggested by CHACE.
Cao Lushuai
Cui Jiajia
Deng Jin-Song
Qiu Y.-L.
Wang Jeffrey
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