Observations of the moon by the global ozone monitoring experiment: radiometric calibration and lunar albedo

Abstract

The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) is a new instrument, which was launched aboard the second European Remoting Sensing satellite ESA-ERS2 in 1995. For its long-term radiometric and spectral calibration the GOME observes the sun and less frequently the moon on a regular basis. These measurements of the lunar radiance and solar irradiance have been used in a study to determine, for the first time to the authors' knowledge, the geometric lunar albedo from 240 to 800 nm at high spectral resolution from space. For a waning moon there is good agreement with ground-based measurements in the visible region and with recent space-based measurements in the ultraviolet region. In addition, the use of these measurements for the characterization of in-orbit degradation of instruments operating in this spectral region has been adequately demonstrated.