Rocket Borne Long-slit UV Spectroscopy of Comet Hale-Bopp

Computer Science – Sound

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Scientific paper

A sounding rocket observation of comet Hale-Bopp was conducted on 1997 April 6 03:51 UT, when the comet was at heliocentric and geocentric distances of 0.92 and 1.39 AU, respectively. The instrument consisted of a 40 cm f/15.5 Dall-Kirkham telescope, a sealed 400mm Rowland circle spectrograph with a holographically ruled, astigmatism corrected grating, and a microchannel plate (MCP) detector with a double-delay-line anode. A long slit (7 arcsec x 260 arcsec, {7.1}{3}km x {2.6}{5}km at the comet) located at the focus of the telescope served as the entrance pupil to the spectrograph. Spectral resolution of ~5 Angstroms was achieved over the entire bandpass (1280-1850 Angstroms). The spatial resolution of the telescope was ~1'' (1000km at the comet). All optical surfaces were coated with MgF_2 over Al and the spectrograph was sealed with a 2 mm thick CaF_2 window, eliminating contamination by Hi lambda 1216. The effective area of the instrument over the majority of the bandpass was 10--15 cm(2). During the observation the slit sampled the coma along the sun-comet line from ~{9}{4}km sunward to ~{2}{5}km tailward. Emissions from O, C, S and CO are detected with almost all emissions showing a sunward enhancement. ion{O}{1} lambda 1304, ion{C}{1} lambda lambda 1561 and 1657 emissions fill the aperture and show little evidence of a peaked distribution. Several multiplets of ion{S}{1} are observed over a gradient of optical depths. The optically thin ion{S}{1} lines show a spatial distribution peaked at the nucleus while the most optically thick line shows no evidence of a peaked distribution. Numerous bands of the CO Fourth Positive system (A sing PI - X sing SIGMA) are present in the data and all show a peaked distribution, although the stronger transitions are less peaked than the weaker ones. The forbidden ion{O}{1} lambda 1356 transition is detected and exhibits a spatial profile similar to that of the CO Fourth Positive bands. ion{C}{2} lambda 1335 is detected with a spatial profile enhanced in the tailward direction.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Rocket Borne Long-slit UV Spectroscopy of Comet Hale-Bopp does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Rocket Borne Long-slit UV Spectroscopy of Comet Hale-Bopp, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Rocket Borne Long-slit UV Spectroscopy of Comet Hale-Bopp will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1190316

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.