Abstract The potential effect of the lunar exosphere on the near-ultraviolet sky background emission is predicted for Lunar-based Ultraviolet Telescope (LUT: a funded Chinese scientific payload for the Chang’e-III mission). Using the upper limit on the OH concentration inferred from the recent MIP CHACE results, our calculations show that the sky brightness due to the illuminated exosphere is <8.7photons−1 cm−2 arcsec−2 within the wavelength range 245–340nm. By evaluating the signal-to-noise ratios of observations of an AB=13mag point source at a series of sky background levels, our analysis indicates that the detection performance of LUT can be moderately degraded by the lunar exosphere emission in most cases. An AB=13mag point source can still be detected by the telescope at a signal-to-noise ratio more than 8 when the OH concentration is less than 2×108 moleculescm−3. However, the effect on the performance is considerable when the exosphere is as dense as suggested by CHACE.
Lunar exosphere influence on lunar-based near-ultraviolet astronomical observations
Advances in Space Research ; 48 , 12 ; 1927-1934
2011-08-02
8 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Lunar exosphere influence on lunar-based near-ultraviolet astronomical observations
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