Toward More Precise Survey Photometry for PanSTARRS and LSST: Measuring Directly the Optical Transmission Spectrum of the Atmosphere
Open accessAbstract
Motivated by the recognition that variation in the optical transmission of the atmosphere is probably the main limitation to the precision of ground‐based CCD measurements of celestial fluxes, we review the physical processes that attenuate the passage of light through Earth's atmosphere. The next generation of astronomical surveys, such as PanSTARRS and LSST, will greatly benefit from dedicated apparatus to obtain atmospheric transmission data that can be associated with each survey image. We review and compare various approaches to this measurement problem, including photometry, spectroscopy, and LIDAR. In conjunction with careful measurements of instrumental throughput, atmospheric transmission measurements should allow next‐generation imaging surveys to produce photometry of unprecedented precision. Our primary concerns are the real‐time determination of aerosol scattering and absorption by water along the line of sight, both of which can vary over the course of a night's observations.
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A dedicated 1.2 m auxiliary calibration telescope will obtain spectra of standard stars in LSST fields to calibrate atmospheric throughput as a function of wavelength.
“A dedicated 1.2 m auxiliary calibration telescope will obtain spectra of standard stars in LSST fi elds, calibrating the atmospheric throughput as a function of wavelength ( Stubbs et al. 2007; see Figures 5 and 6 ) .”
From LSST: From Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products (2019) · cites this paper as Stubbs et al. 2007
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References 42 · Cited by 70
- Authors
- Stubbs, C. W., High, F. W., George, M. R., DeRose, K. L., Blondin, S., Tonry, J. L., Chambers, K. C., Granett, B. R., Burke, D. L., & Smith, R. C.
- Affiliations
- Harvard University (US)
- University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (US)
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US)
- Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CL)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2007-10
- Volume
- 119
- Issue
- 860
- Pages
- 1163-1178
- ISSN
- 0004-6280 (ISSN-L)
- 1538-3873
- OpenAlex
- W2092683131
- Cited by
- 70
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 6.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Instrumentation › Astronomy and Astrophysical Research
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Computational Mechanics › Astronomical Observations and Instrumentation
- Keywords
- atmospheric transmission, optical transmission spectrum, aerosol light scattering, water vapor absorption, LiDAR, atmospheric spectroscopy, Pan-STARRS, LSST
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Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
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