Development of a near‐infrared balloon‐borne camera for dayside and sunlit auroral observations

Abstract

AbstractImaging aurora in daylight is a difficult and challenging task. The brightness of the sunlit atmosphere overwhelms the auroral emissions at visible wavelengths. Modeling of atmospheric brightness suggests that the contrast between auroral brightness and sky brightness makes it possible to image the aurora at near‐infrared (NIR) wavelengths from sufficient altitudes. Preliminary experiments confirmed that the auroral N2+ Meinel emissions at about 1100 nm are bright enough to be extracted from atmospheric background brightness during daylight at about 40 km of a balloon altitude, which lead to the development of a high‐performance NIR InGaAs camera that can be flown on a high‐altitude and long‐duration balloon. Auroral observations from such a platform are highly accommodated to current space missions (such as Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms/Acceleration Reconnection Turbulence and Electrodynamics of Moon's Interaction with the Sun, Magnetospheric Multiscale, Cluster, Geotail, and Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) and many ground‐based measurements and will enhance the science return significantly.