Vibrational populations of near-ultraviolet O2 band systems in the night airglow 1This article is part of a Special issue that honours the work of Dr. Donald M. Hunten FRSC who passed away in December 2010 after a very illustrious career.

Abstract

Observations of the limb night airglow spectrum from 250 to 475 nm, emitted from the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere, are compared with model spectra. Data from the Arizona GLO-1 imaging spectrograph and the OSIRIS spectrograph are combined to form the observed mean airglow spectrum; a tabulated version of this spectrum is included. Model spectra of the individual O2 Herzberg I, II, and III, Chamberlain, and Slanger band systems are combined to simulate the observed mean spectrum. Franck–Condon relative band intensities are used to form a series of basis functions for the upper vibrational levels in each band system. These functions are fitted to the observed airglow spectrum with a least-squares method, the relative vibrational populations are derived and discussed.