Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jul 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...210.8211d&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society Meeting 210, #82.11; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.327
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
This project, as part of a National Science Foundation REU summer program, explores the feasibility of a new atmospheric calibration system that would involve mounting a small, Spectroscopic Sky Probe (SSP) on the side of the Pan-STARRS telescope in order to use its measurements for atmospheric calibration purposes. The Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System) will use the world's largest digital camera as part of an endeavor to survey the entire sky visible from its location on Mauna Kea on a weekly basis by taking 30 second exposures of predetermined 7 square degree fields. Ideally, this SSP would take a 30 second spectroscopic measurement of a standard star pre-selected for each Pan-STARRS field and match this spectrum to a database of atmospheric models from MODTRAN (MODerate Spectral Resolution Atmospheric TRANsmittance Algorithm) and use this information to more correctly calibrate the magnitudes of sources detected. For the purposes of this experiment, spectroscopic data was taken for stars at varying airmasses using the University of Hawaii 88” telescope on Mauna Kea. Using known environmental conditions on top of Mauna Kea along with the standard concentrations of atmospheric molecules expected, it is possible to generate a grid of feasible MODTRAN models varying only 3 key parameters: zenith angle, oxygen concentration, and water vapor concentration. Fitting these 3 parameters to the observations can yield photometric errors on the order of .02% even with noise added to the exposure data to simulate shorter exposure times. Running the fitting algorithm for varying resolutions and noise levels, it is clear that a ten inch spectroscopic sky probe would be just within tolerance levels in order to fit the atmospheric models successfully. Therefore, preliminary results seem to show that this would be a feasible method for very accurately calibrating the photometric measurements taken by Pan-STARRS.
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