All-sky Airglow Imager Research Articles

Effects of Equatorial Plasma Bubbles on Multi-GNSS Signals: A Case Study over South China

Equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) occur frequently in low-latitude areas and have a non-negligible impact on navigation satellite signals. To systematically analyze the effects of a single EPB event on multi-frequency signals of GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, and BDS, all-sky airglow images over South China are jointly used to visually determine the EPB structure and depletion degree. The results reveal that scintillations, or GNSS signal fluctuations, are directly linked to EPBs and that the intensity of scintillation is positively correlated with the airglow depletion intensity. The center of the airglow depletion often corresponds to stronger GNSS scintillation, while the edge of the bubble, which is considered to have the largest density gradient, corresponds to relatively smaller scintillation instead. This work also systematically analyzes the responses of multi-constellation and multi-frequency signals to EPBs. The results show that the L2 and L5 frequencies are more susceptible than the L1 frequency is. For different constellations, Galileo’s signal has the best tracking stability during an EPB event compared with GPS, GLONASS, and BDS. The results provide a reference for dual-frequency signal selection in precise positioning or TEC calculation, that is, L1C and L2L for GPS, L1C and L5Q for Galileo, L1P and L2C for GLONASS, and L1P and L5P for BDS. Notably, BDS-2 is significantly weaker than BDS-3. And inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) satellites have abnormal data error rates, which should be related to the special signal path trajectory of the IGSO satellite.

Optimizing a deep learning framework for accurate detection of the Earth’s ionospheric plasma structures from all-sky airglow images

The ionosphere, part of the Earth’s atmosphere, where different plasma irregularities/structures are generated through various electrodynamical processes. Airglow imaging is one of the tools to observe various morphological features of these irregularities. We aim to help all-sky airglow imaging-based ionospheric research by proposing novel deep learning at the edge framework for the detection of different types of mid-latitude ionospheric plasma structures (medium scale traveling ionospheric disturbances with single and multiple bands, and plasma bubbles). The primary challenge was to find an optimal deep neural network by considering the trade-off between accuracy and inference time. In order to address this, a novel hyperparameter optimization technique has been used that integrates the approaches of random and grid search mechanisms as a compact function. The random function generates the subspace for hyperparameters to check the convergence of the model while the grid search creates possible combinations to tune these hyperparameters. Our novel optimization method for deep learning inference at the edge led us to a low-cost, high-accuracy convolutional neural network (CNN) model, which outperformed the complex state-of-the-art deep learning models such as Inception-v3, DenseNet169, VGG16, and VGG19. For airglow image-based plasma structure detection, the proposed model recorded an accuracy of 99.9% with an inference time of 5.8 s. This was an improvement of about 4% in accuracy while 85% reduction in inference time over the best-performing baseline. There was about 93% reduction in the number of model parameters with respect to the best-performing baseline. Uncertainty quantification has also been performed in the present work through bootstrapping to validate the robustness of the proposed model. The findings of our study show the promise of deep learning at the edge for all-sky airglow imaging systems by demonstrating an alternate low-cost, high-accuracy deep neural network.

Simultaneous observations of equatorial plasma bubbles with an all-sky airglow imager and a HF Doppler sounding system in Taiwan

High-Frequency Doppler (HFD) sounders at low-latitudes often detect characteristic oblique spreading Doppler traces in the spectrogram, known as Oblique Spread Structure (OSS). OSS has been expected to be generated by the dispersion of radio wave reflection due to equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs). However, it has not yet been confirmed whether OSS is surely a manifestation of EPB by conducting simultaneous observations of EPB and OSS with different observational techniques. Additionally, it remains unclear what kinds of properties of EPB are reflected in the fine structure of OSS. In this study, we investigated three cases of OSSs and EPBs simultaneously observed by a HFD sounding system and an all-sky airglow imager in Taiwan. For the three cases presented here, the timing of OSS occurrence in the HFD data well coincided with that of the EPB appearance in the airglow data. The frequency shift of OSS is quantitatively explained assuming a radio wave reflection at 250–300 km altitudes. These results strongly indicate that OSS is formed by electron density variations at F-region altitudes accompanying EPB; thus, OSS is a manifestation of EPB in the HFD observations. Furthermore, it was suggested that the fine structure of OSS reflected the branching structure of EPB when the multiple branches of EPB reached the intermediate reflection point of the HFD observation. The detection of EPB occurrence and its fine structure using HFD observation enables monitoring of EPB regardless of weather conditions, which will contribute to monitoring the space weather impact of EPBs, for example, on GNSS navigation, in a wide area.Graphical

Design of all-sky airglow imaging spectrometers in the middle and upper atmosphere

In order to detect the distribution of gravity waves in the middle and upper atmosphere, an all-sky airglow imaging spectrometer is designed to measure the airglow. It has the detection advantages of ultrawide field of view (FOV), large relative aperture and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). It can obtain the spectral images of OH (715–850 nm / 880–930 nm) and OI (630 nm) in the height range of 87–250 km. The whole design method of telecentric objective splicing relay zoom group is used to effectively suppress the spectral drift less than 0.2 nm, which meets the requirements of narrow bandwidth filters. The field experiments in northwest China show that the all-sky airglow imaging spectrometer can continuously acquire airglow spectral images with high SNR in both OH channel and OI channel without focusing in the temperature range of 0–45 ℃, and the images obtained in OH channel have obvious gravity wave phenomenon after star point removal and geometric correction.

Analysis of Airglow Image Classification Based on Feature Map Visualization

All-sky airglow imagers (ASAIs) are used in the Meridian Project to observe the airglow in the middle and upper atmosphere to study the atmospheric perturbation. However, the ripples of airglow caused by the perturbation are only visible in the airglow images taken on a clear night. It is a problem to effectively select images suitable for scientific analysis from the enormous amount of airglow images captured under various environments due to the low efficiency and subjectivity of traditional manual classification. We trained a classification model based on convolutional neural network to distinguish between airglow images from clear nights and unclear nights. The data base contains 1688 images selected from the airglow images captured at Xinglong station (40.4° N, 30.5° E). The entire training process was tracked by feature maps which visualized every resulting classification model. The classification models with the clearest feature maps were saved for future use. We cropped the central part of the airglow images to avoid disturbance from the artificial lights at the edge of the vision field according to the feature maps of our first training. The accuracy of the saved model is 99%. The feature maps of five categories also indicate the reliability of the classification model.

All-sky Airglow Imager and Ionosonde Data on 26 Oct 2019

All-sky Airglow Imager and Ionosonde Data on 26 Oct 2019

All-sky imaging observations of mesospheric fronts from Silchar (24.7°N, 92.8°E)

An All-Sky Airglow Imager was operated at Silchar (24.68°N, 92.76°E), India from 9 to 11 December 2018, during a special observational campaign. We report the presence of two simultaneous mesospheric fronts observed in OH airglow emission propagating orthogonal to each other on the night of 9 December 2018, which was a rare and unique observational feature. A third mesospheric front was observed on 11 December 2018. Temperature and OH intensity measurements from SABER instrument onboard TIMED satellite were used to characterise the environment of the frontal propagation. Though one of the frontal structures resembled a mesospheric bore, the other frontal events do not satisfy a few of the requirements to be met for a bore. We also report the modulation of the OH emission layer by the passage of the mesospheric front on the night of 11 December 2018.

A case study of a ducted gravity wave event over northern Germany using simultaneous airglow imaging and wind-field observations

Abstract. An intriguing and rare gravity wave event was recorded on the night of 25 April 2017 using a multiwavelength all-sky airglow imager over northern Germany. The airglow imaging observations at multiple altitudes in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere region reveal that a prominent upward-propagating wave structure appeared in O(1S) and O2 airglow images. However, the same wave structure was observed to be very faint in OH airglow images, despite OH being usually one of the brightest airglow emissions. In order to investigate this rare phenomenon, the altitude profile of the vertical wavenumber was derived based on colocated meteor radar wind-field and SABER temperature profiles close to the event location. The results indicate the presence of a thermal duct layer in the altitude range of 85–91 km in the southwest region of Kühlungsborn, Germany. Utilizing these instrumental data sets, we present evidence to show how a leaky duct layer partially inhibited the wave progression in the OH airglow emission layer. The coincidental appearance of this duct layer is responsible for the observed faint wave front in the OH airglow images compared O(1S) and O2 airglow images during the course of the night over northern Germany.

Joint observation of the concentric gravity wave event on the Tibetan Plateau

A concentric gravity wave event was captured by a photographer in Nagarzê County (90.28°N, 28.33°E) between 02:00 and 04:00 (local time) on May 11, 2019. This concentric gravity wave event was also observed by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite and the all-sky airglow imager at Yangbajing station (90.5°E, 30.1°N). The temporal and spatial information on gravity waves from the photographs provided a rare opportunity to study the propagation of gravity waves over the Tibetan Plateau. According to wind and temperature data from the MERRA-2 reanalysis (Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2) and empirical models (NRLMSISE-00 [Naval Research Laboratory Mass Spectrometer and Incoherent Scatter Radar Exosphere] and HWM [horizontal wind model]), we inversely derived the propagation trajectory from the observed wave pattern to the source region by using the ray-tracing method. The source of the concentric gravity wave was identified as deep convection in Bangladesh (90.6°E, 25.0°N). The maximum background wind speed in the propagation direction (31.05 m/s) was less than the phase speed of 53 m/s, which is consistent with the wind-filtering theory.

Evidence for simultaneous occurrence of periodic and single dark band MSTIDs over geomagnetic low-mid latitude transition region

We report a unique simultaneous occurrence of two plasma structures using a 630.0 nm all-sky airglow imager in Hanle, India. The characteristics indicate that the observed structures are Medium Scale Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs) of different types, namely periodic and single dark band. Based on previous understandings of Perkins instability, we explore the role of polarization electric field within MSTIDs using complementary observations from a nearby digisonde. We propose that the MSTIDs involve different seeding processes. This study provides crucial information in elucidating the generation of MSTIDs and helps in understanding the F-region electrodynamics over geomagnetic low-mid latitude transition region.

Case study of an Equatorial Plasma Bubble Event investigated by multiple ground-based instruments at low latitudes over China

Observational evidence is insufficient to understand how equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) form over low latitudes. The mechanism of plasma-density enhancement (formation of “plasma blobs”) at low latitudes is in dispute. In this paper, we use data from multiple ground-based instruments (one all-sky airglow imager, five digisondes, and one Fabry–Perot interferometer) to investigate the evolution of an EPB event that occurred at low latitudes over China on the night of 06 December 2015 (06-Dec-2015). We provide observational evidence that an enhanced equatorward wind most likely induced by a substorm could have initiated the Rayleigh–Taylor instability (RTI) that destabilized several EPB depletions in an upwelling region of a large-scale wave-like structure (LSWS) in the bottomside ionosphere. Those EPB depletions were forced to surge poleward, from nearly 10° to 19° magnetic latitude, two hours before midnight. Smaller-scale bifurcations evolved rapidly from tips of airglow depletions by a secondary E × B instability when the aforementioned substorm-induced southwestward wind blew through. During the growth phase of the EPB depletions, a westward polarization electric field inside the LSWS is likely to have compressed plasma downward, inducing the two airglow-type blobs observed in the bottomside ionosphere, by a mechanism of LSWS-blob connection that we propose. We also provide observational evidence of brightness airglow depletions. We find that an enhanced poleward wind associated with a passing-by brightness wave (BW) is likely to have transported plasma to fill the airglow depletions, which finally evolved into brightness airglow structures. This study investigates the physical processes accompanied by the EPB event and those two-airglow blobs observed at low-latitudes over China.

Extraction of Quasi-Monochromatic Gravity Waves from an Airglow Imager Network

An algorithm has been developed to isolate the gravity waves (GWs) of different scales from airglow images. Based on the discrete wavelet transform, the images are decomposed and then reconstructed in a series of mutually orthogonal spaces, each of which takes a Daubechies (db) wavelet of a certain scale as a basis vector. The GWs in the original airglow image are stripped to the peeled image reconstructed in each space, and the scale of wave patterns in a peeled image corresponds to the scale of the db wavelet as a basis vector. In each reconstructed image, the extracted GW is quasi-monochromatic. An adaptive band-pass filter is applied to enhance the GW structures. From an ensembled airglow image with a coverage of 2100 km × 1200 km using an all-sky airglow imager (ASAI) network, the quasi-monochromatic wave patterns are extracted using this algorithm. GWs range from ripples with short wavelength of 20 km to medium-scale GWs with a wavelength of 590 km. The images are denoised, and the propagating characteristics of GWs with different wavelengths are derived separately.

Optical observation of plasma bubbles and comparative study of multiple methods of observing the ionosphere over China

Ionospheric plasma bubbles and scintillation phenomena often occur at low latitudes in China. The all-sky airglow imager located at Fuke station in Hainan (19.5°N, 109.2°E) is part of the Meridian project in China. In this work, we used mainly the observation data obtained by the imager and a digisonde to study plasma bubbles. Optical image processing—including image enhancement, azimuth correction and image projection—was performed on the original airglow observation images, and clear high-resolution images of the bubbles were obtained. Based on these, the morphological features, spatial and temporal variations, spatial scale, drift velocity of the plasma bubbles in the F region of the ionosphere were investigated and analyzed. The plasma bubbles appeared as long, dark stripes on the bright airglow emission background. Their large-scale structures often bifurcated vertically, and were usually tilted westward with north-south extension along the magnetic field lines. The east-west scale of the plasma bubbles was usually greater than 200 km and these increased gradually with time. Moreover, the distance between the adjacent plasma bubbles also increased over time, and was in the 100–400 km range. Plasma bubbles generally drifted eastward with an average drift velocity of approximately 90 m/s. The occurrence and duration of the plasma bubbles were compared with digisonde observations, and it was shown that plasma bubbles lasted for nearly four hours. Additionally, the main characteristics of the plasma bubbles were obtained using both optical and radio observations and the study of which can be beneficial for monitoring and predicting ionospheric scintillations.

Airglow Patches in the Polar Cap Region: A Review

Polar cap airglow patches have been known as regions of enhanced 630.0 nm airglow detected by ground-based all-sky imagers at the polar cap latitudes well inside the main auroral oval. Although they were already recognized almost four decades ago as counterparts of polar cap (plasma density) patches, such airglow observations had not been utilized extensively for the studies of ionospheric structures and/or magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling processes in the polar cap. In the last two decades, following the development of highly-sensitive airglow imagers equipped with cooled CCD (Charge Coupled Device) cameras, it has become possible to visualize the dynamical temporal evolution and complicated spatial structure of airglow patches with improved signal-to-noise ratio. Such a progress has enabled us not only to use airglow patches as tracers for plasma convection in the polar cap but also to understand the generation of small-scale plasma irregularities in the ionospheric F region. In addition, recent observations demonstrated a case in which an airglow patch was accompanied by an intense flow channel and corresponding field-aligned current structure along its edges. This implies that airglow patches can signify magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling process in the region of open field lines at the polar cap latitudes, serving as a remote sensing tool just like auroras do. Further studies showed an association of airglow patches with the intensification of aurora on the nightside (Poleward Boundary Intensification: PBI and/or streamer) leading to the expansion phase onset of substorms. This paper reviews such recent progresses in the researches of airglow patches obtained by combining data from all-sky airglow imagers, radars and low-altitude satellite observations in the polar cap.

Automatic Extraction of Gravity Waves from All-Sky Airglow Image Based on Machine Learning

With the development of ground-based all-sky airglow imager (ASAI) technology, a large amount of airglow image data needs to be processed for studying atmospheric gravity waves. We developed a program to automatically extract gravity wave patterns in the ASAI images. The auto-extraction program includes a classification model based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and an object detection model based on faster region-based convolutional neural network (Faster R-CNN). The classification model selects the images of clear nights from all ASAI raw images. The object detection model locates the region of wave patterns. Then, the wave parameters (horizontal wavelength, period, direction, etc.) can be calculated within the region of the wave patterns. Besides auto-extraction, we applied a wavelength check to remove the interference of wavelike mist near the imager. To validate the auto-extraction program, a case study was conducted on the images captured in 2014 at Linqu (36.2°N, 118.7°E), China. Compared to the result of the manual check, the auto-extraction recognized less (28.9% of manual result) wave-containing images due to the strict threshold, but the result shows the same seasonal variation as the references. The auto-extraction program applies a uniform criterion to avoid the accidental error in manual distinction of gravity waves and offers a reliable method to process large ASAI images for efficiently studying the climatology of atmospheric gravity waves.

Allsky airglow imaging observations from Hanle, Leh Ladakh, India: Image analyses and first results

We have installed a multi-wavelength allsky airglow imager over the Indian Himalayan region at Hanle, Leh Ladakh, (32.7°N, 78.9°E; dip lat. ∼24.1°N). This is the first of its kind that is installed in the Himalayan region at an altitude of around 4200 m above the mean sea level. The high sensitive thermoelectrically cooled CCD based imager is equipped with two interference filters (557.7 nm and 630.0 nm with a bandwidth of 2 nm). The airglow imaging observations have been carried out during moonless nights since June 2018. This paper presents the detailed steps of the image processing techniques to transform the raw images into the geospatially-calibrated images and discusses the process for the estimation of gravity wave parameters (horizontal wavelength, apparent phase velocity and periodicities) from the processed images. In addition, we report a few interesting events like Ripple-type structures, gravity waves and mesospheric bores in the mesopshere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region and the plasma disturbances in the ionospheric F region observed for the first time over Hanle, Leh Ladakh.

Possible evidence for small-scale wave seeding of equatorial plasma bubbles

The small-scale wave-like structure (SSWS) of F region bottomside plasma density was proposed to be an important seeding for equatorial plasma bubble (EPB) generation, and employed in theoretical simulations of EPBs in recent years. The seeding role of SSWS, however, is waiting to be demonstrated by observation. Here we present two cases of SSWS and EPB observed by the Fuke all-sky airglow imager (19.3°N, 109.1°E; dip latitude 14.3°N). For each case, the results show that two large-scale wave-like structures (LSWSs) initially appeared around sunset in the longitude regions separated by 3–4°, but EPB irregularities were only generated in one of the LSWSs where SSWSs were seen riding on LSWS. For the other LSWS, no SSWS and EPB irregularities were seen. Considering that the two LSWSs were situated closely in longitude where the amplitude of pre-reversal enhancement of background eastward electric field should be similar, the observation that EPB was only generated in the longitude with simultaneous LSWS and SSWS could provide supporting evidence for SSWS seeding of EPB.

多波段全天空气辉成像仪光学系统设计

多波段全天空气辉成像仪光学系统设计

Study of wave signatures observed in thermospheric airglow imaging over the dip equatorial region

The observational data on OI 630 nm thermospheric nightglow from the Indian dip equatorial station, Tirunelveli (8.7°N, 77.8°E geographic, 1.6°N dip latitude) obtained between January 2013 and January 2015 using an All-Sky Airglow Imager (ASAI) are utilized in this work to examine the presence of gravity waves in the thermosphere. Two types of wave signatures were observed: (1) quasi-periodic waves consisting of alternating crests and troughs and (2) single bands of enhanced intensity (SBEI). The phase speed, wavelength and time period of the quasi-periodic waves were in the range of 70–160 m/s, 130–575 km and 25–75 min, respectively, while the phase speed and scale size of the SBEI features were found to be in the range of 150–250 m/s and 230–470 km, respectively. During equinoxes, quasi-periodic waves propagated towards north-northwest direction, while during winter they were observed to propagate towards northwest, south-southwest and southeast directions.

Equatorial plasma bubble seeding by MSTIDs in the ionosphere

Occurrences of equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) and medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) were studied using GPS satellite data-based total electron content mapping, ionograms, and 630 nm all-sky airglow images observed over the South American continent during the period of 2014–2015. In many cases, we observed a close relationship between the inter-bubble distance and the horizontal wavelength of the MSTIDs. The MSTIDs followed by EPBs occurred primarily in the afternoon to evening period under strong tropospheric convective activities (cold fronts and/or intertropical convergence zones). The close relationship between EPBs and MSTIDs suggests that MSTIDs could be one of the seeding sources of EPBs.