Kevin T.C. Jim (Oceanit), Basil Scott (Oceanit), Russell Knox (Oceanit)
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Abstract:
Simulations of near-infrared, non-resolved imaging of earth-orbiting satellites during nighttime and daytime were created to consider the feasibility of such observations. By using the atmospheric radiative transfer code MODTRAN (MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission), we incorporate site-specific mean weather conditions for several possible locations. In general, the dominant effect to be modeled is the sky radiance, which has a strong dependence upon the solar angle and the nature of the distribution of aerosols. Other significant effects included in the model are telescope design, camera design, and detector selection. The simulations are used in turn to predict the signal to noise ratio (SNR) in standard astronomical filter bands for several test cases of satellite-sun-observer geometries. The SNR model is then used to devise a method to design an optimal filter band for these observations.
Date of Conference: September 1-4. 2009
Track: