水平子午环微光探测系统

来自遥远天体的信号相当微弱,往往被夜天光所淹没,无法提取有用的信号,因此天文微光探测力求尽可能减少夜天光的影响,获得尽可能高的信噪比,活动光栅是减少夜天光影响的最佳方案,光子计数的应用可直接获得星光信号的数字量,为噪声的研究提供了可能,本文介绍的微光探测系统就是基于上述原则设计的,已成功地用于中国与丹麦合作研制的全自动水平子午环上,其系统精度为0.03角秒,另一方面应选取合适的数学模型,以期结果更接近于无偏估计,作者提出了一种相关处理方法,其特点是无需任何假定,因此这种归算更接近于无偏估计,特别适用于暗星观测的归算。     

Space-based intensity interferometer

The intensity interferometer utilizes the correlations between intensity fluctuations to measure the coherence between light waves. Correlating the intensities of the waves and not their amplitudes can overcome the main disadvantage of the Michelson stellar interferometer in a space environment. It is shown that intensity interferometry should be applicable to stellar sources as weak as 8th magnitude, using techniques that are theoretically feasible today. Two approaches are proposed for a global sky observation campaign while minimizing spacecraft fuel consumption. In the second approach the computational interferometry observation method is introduced, which enables an observation of the full sky from a single orbit. Moreover, control laws were designed to relocate a spacecraft into the required baseline and to maintain it.     

Validation of an 8-14 microm cloud monitor using visual observations of Antarctic cloud cover

A cloud monitor instrument, sensing 8-14 microm infrared radiation, has been installed near McMurdo, Antarctica, in order to provide supporting cloud cover information for a high-resolution sky-viewing Fabry-Perot spectrometer experiment. Validation of the cloud monitor observations was performed by a 1 year long comparison with the available 6 h visual cloud observations, expressed in octas (obscured eighths of the sky). The agreement between visual observations and those of the cloud monitor is good--the variation being slightly over one step, or octa--except at the clear sky extreme, which the subjective visual observations tend to overestimate during dark and moonless conditions. Both visual observations and the cloud monitor measurements show an austral winter-summer difference with the winter being clearer.     

Using stars for remote sensing of the Earth's stratosphere

A new UV-visible spectrometer system that measures the absorption of light from stars and planets by constituents in the Earth's atmosphere is described. Because it can be used to make measurements at night, the system has a significant advantage for measuring polar constituents in winter, when conditions that might give rise to ozone loss are initiated. Other advantages arise from the use of a cooled two-dimensional CCD array as the detector: an array detector avoids spectral noise resulting from scintillation of stars or from clouds passing overhead and allows for the possibility of measuring several constituents simultaneously; its second dimension permits auroral light from the atmosphere adjacent to the star to be measured simultaneously and subtracted from the stellar light, and a modern low-noise CCD allows us to use a telescope of modest diameter. The few previous measurements of constituents made by the use of stellar absorption did not have these advantages. The instrument was configured for simplicity and ease of use in field measurements and was deployed outside in winter in Northern Sweden in 1991. Examples of ozone measurements are shown.     

Nighttime measurements of atmospheric optical thickness by star photometry with a digital camera

Nighttime stellar photometric measurements have been carried out with a commercial digital single-lens reflex camera to determine the atmospheric optical thickness on large fields of view (FOV). Specific procedures of image analysis allow to extract an equivalent irradiance for a number of stars and for the sky light background; thus, a measure of the optical thickness in each star direction can be retrieved. A larger FOV is obtained by stitching several photographs shot in quick sequence on adjacent regions of the sky: such measurements provide almost instantaneous maps of optical thickness and skylight background that indicate the degree of homogeneity of the aerosol load. Additional information provided by the combined use of the camera and a lidar is presented. The zenithal optical thickness is used with values of the aerosol backscatter provided by a lidar system to obtain the aerosol extinction-to-backscatter ratio.     

Highly efficient and aberration-corrected spectrometer for advanced Raman spectroscopy

We designed an asymmetric Czerny-Turner-type spectrometer with a spectral resolution of approximately 1 cm(-1) and a focal length of 500 mm (F/4.1) to improve the aberration properties: (1) coma aberration was corrected by use of a particular incident angle for a condensing mirror based onShafer's equation, (2) astigmatism was corrected by use of a toroidal condensing mirror, (3) the optimum distance was found between a grating and condensing mirror so that the centered light and marginal light at the detector possess the same incident angles to the condensing mirror (the aberration is therefore excellently corrected over the whole detector surfaces), and (4) these optimal configurations are ensured in a wide wavelength between 400 and 800 nm by use of gratings with different grooves. Then the spectrometer was constructed, and the excellent optical properties were confirmed with aligned fiber images and Raman spectra from copper phthalocyanine.     

Stellar speckle camera for spectroscopy

A stellar speckle spectrometer with increased performance and flexibility has been newly developed. In this new spectrometer two synchronized detectors are used to observe a dispersed speckle pattern and a specklegram. A reflection grating is employed as a disperser. We obtained a stellar spectrum with the diffraction-limited spatial resolution of a telescope by referring to specklegrams that are simultaneously recorded with dispersed speckle patterns. A preliminary observational result is also shown.     

Differential optical absorption spectrometer for measurement of tropospheric pollutants

Our institute has recently developed a differential optical absorption spectrometry system called the gas analyzer spectrometer correlating optical absorption differences (GASCOAD), which features as a detector a linear image sensor that uses an artificial light source for long-path tropospheric-pollution monitoring. The GASCOAD, its method of eliminating interference from background sky light, and subsequent spectral analysis are reported and discussed. The spectrometer was used from 7 to 22 February 1993 in Milan, a heavily polluted metropolitan area, to measure the concentrations of SO(2), NO(2), O(3), and HNO(2) averaged over a 1.7-km horizontal light path. The findings are reported and briefly discussed.     

Alignment of optical delay lines for long-baseline stellar interferometry.

The problem of aligning an optical delay line for use in long-baseline stellar interferometry is discussed. particular, the development of the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer alignment system is described. Rapid mirror alignment must be performed with sufficient precision that beam shear is limited to a few millimeters over an optical path length that may exceed 800 m. Two possible alignment algorithms are presented. The first is a null-seeking servo where the mirrors are adjusted to minimize the sum of their angular alignment errors. The second method utilizes a priori knowledge of the mirror separations to minimize the total shear. A number of time-dependent and time-independent errors that affect alignment and alignment stability are also discussed.     

Off-plane anastigmatic imaging in Offner spectrometers

In this paper, the imaging performance of an Offner concentric imaging spectrometer is analyzed when the spectrometer entrance slit is disposed arbitrarily on the plane that is parallel to the grating grooves and contains the common center of curvature. Astigmatism-corrected designs are obtained for off-plane incidence on the grating if one point on the slit is located on the Rowland circle of the primary mirror. In this case, the combined system of primary mirror plus diffraction grating provides two astigmatic line images oriented parallel and orthogonal to the plane of diffraction, with the former located on the same plane as the slit. Consequently, these images can be brought to a single focus on this plane by the tertiary mirror if its radius of curvature is chosen properly. In addition, coma aberration is simultaneously removed. These results can be applied to the design of two-mirror or three-mirror spectrometers, generalizing the concept of the best imaging circle and providing solutions to get anastigmatic imaging for two object points and two wavelengths.     

Bimorph变形镜10.6μm薄膜研究

基于压电驱动器的Bimorph变形镜是10.6 μm系统的一个重要元件.为了镀制薄膜,本文首先利用有限元软件对两种镀膜夹持方式与沉积温度进行了计算,对热应力产生的热变形进行了分析,选择了合适的镀膜夹持方式.为了预测bimorph变形镜受激光辐照后的温升,对单晶硅与石英玻璃制作的bimorph变形镜有限元模型进行了计算与分析.最后,利用光度计对镀制的薄膜进行了反射率测量.试验结果显示反射率测量值大于99.5％,满足实际系统的需要.     

Laboratory Calibration System for CMB Polarization Detectors

We present a novel system to calibrate millimeter-wave polarimeters for CMB polarization measurements. This technique is an extension of the conventional metal mirror rotation approach, however it employs cryogenically-cooled blackbody absorbers. The primary advantage of this system is that it can generate a slightly polarized signal?(～100?mK) in the laboratory; this is at a similar level to that measured by ground-based CMB polarization experiments observing a ～10?K sky. It is important to reproduce the observing condition in the laboratory for reliable characterization of polarimeters before deployment. In this paper, we present the design and principle of the system, and demonstrate its use with a coherent-type polarimeter used for QUIET. This technique can also be applied to incoherent-type polarimeters and it is very promising for the next-generation CMB polarization experiments.     

Design of a high-throughput grazing-incidence flat-field spectrometer

The optical design of a high-throughput grazing-incidence flat-field spectrometer is presented. The spectral focal curve is almost a straight line because of the flat-field focusing properties of spherical variable-line-spaced gratings. The angular acceptance in the direction perpendicular to the plane of dispersion is maximized by means of a focusing spherical mirror mounted with its tangential plane coincident with the sagittal plane of the grating. Analytical calculations for the determination of the optimum mirror parameters are presented. A spectrometer for high-throughput experiments in the 800-60-eV region is designed with an extreme-ultraviolet-enhanced CCD detector: when the available flux is compared with that of a spectrometer with the same kinds of grating and detector but without a focusing mirror, the increase is as much as a factor 3.     

Determination of optical constants of solids by an automaticreflectometer

An absolute reflectance spectrometer was designed. The instrument is based on an Apple II microcomputer which automates data acquisition, curve fitting, Kramers-Kronig integration, and data plotting. In this system, both the positions of the sample and the detectors are fixed during measurement. The reference and sample signals are detected by scanning a mirror which is engaged with a precise stepping motor. The computer controls all the peripheral instruments; therefore the need of continuous attention to the gain control, frequency scanning, and mirror adjustment is eliminated. Versatile software allows the collected data to be easily manipulated and analyzed     

High-resolution two-grating spectrometer for dual wavelength spectral imaging

A two-grating high-resolution spectrometer for dual wavelength imaging is demonstrated based on the standard Czerny-Turner mounting with an auxiliary grating and a mirror. A two-dimensional charge-coupled device (CCD) detector in the spectrometer focal plane allows simultaneous detection of two spectral intervals. Each spectrometer grating is driven by a high-precision stepper motor interfaced to a computer via home-made software. The software allows fast tuning of the gratings to a desirable spectral interval anywhere between 200 nm and 800 nm. The spectral interval widths are 2-3 nm for a 'high-resolution' (2400 grooves/mm) grating and 4-5 nm for a 'low-resolution' (1200 grooves/mm) grating. The resolution varies between 0.01 nm and 0.02 nm depending on the grating used. The performance of the spectrometer is demonstrated by detecting spectrally resolved images from a back-illuminated template and from a laser-induced plasma. The spectrometer can be useful for two-line spectroscopic diagnostics or can be expanded for multi-element spectral analysis.     

Optimum synthetic-aperture imaging of extended astronomical objects

In optical aperture-synthesis imaging of stellar objects, different beam combination strategies are used and proposed. Coaxial Michelson interferometers are very common and a homothetic multiaxial interferometer is recently realized in the Large Binocular Telescope. Laboratory experiments have demonstrated the working principles of two new approaches: densified pupil imaging and wide field-of-view (FOV) coaxial imaging using a staircase-shaped mirror. We develop a common mathematical formulation for direct comparison of the resolution and noise sensitivity of these four telescope configurations for combining beams from multiple apertures for interferometric synthetic aperture, wide-FOV imaging. Singular value decomposition techniques are used to compare the techniques and observe their distinct signal-to-noise ratio behaviors. We conclude that for a certain chosen stellar object, clear differences in performance of the imagers are identifiable.     

FT-2100型傅氏光谱仪控制电路及数据采集处理系统

本文阐述了傅氏光谱仪的数据采集及仪器控制电路的设计方法,在自行研制的FT-2100型傅氏光谱仪中,采用了数字PID控制光程扫描电机的转速,分析了影响采样精度的几种因素,还介绍了适用于有关教学的应用软件。     

Multipass open-path Fourier-transform infrared measurements for nonintrusive monitoring of gas turbine exhaust composition

The detection limits for NO and NO2 in turbine exhausts by nonintrusive monitoring have to be improved. Multipass mode Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) absorption spectrometry and use of a White mirror system were found from a sensitivity study with spectra simulations in the mid-infrared to be essential for the retrieval of NO2 abundances. A new White mirror system with a parallel infrared beam was developed and tested successfully with a commercial FTIR spectrometer in different turbine test beds. The minimum detection limits for a typical turbine plume of 50 cm in diameter are approximately 6 parts per million (ppm) for NO and 9 ppm for NO2 (as well 100 ppm for CO2 and 4 ppm for CO).     

Imaging polarimetry of forest canopies: how the azimuth direction of the sun, occluded by vegetation, can be assessed from the polarization pattern of the sunlit foliage

Radiance, color, and polarization of the light in forests combine to create complex optical patterns. Earlier sporadic polarimetric studies in forests were limited by the narrow fields of view of the polarimeters used in such studies. Since polarization patterns in the entire upper hemisphere of the visual environment of forests could be important for forest-inhabiting animals that make use of linearly polarized light for orientation, we measured 180 degrees field-of-view polarization distributions in Finnish forests. From a hot air balloon we also measured the polarization patterns of Hungarian grasslands lit by the rising sun. We found that the pattern of the angle of polarization alpha of sunlit grasslands and sunlit tree canopies was qualitatively the same as that of the sky. We show here that contrary to an earlier assumption, the alpha-pattern characteristic of the sky always remains visible underneath overhead vegetation, independently of the solar elevation and the sky conditions (clear or partly cloudy with visible sun's disc), provided the foliage is sunlit and not only when large patches of the clear sky are visible through the vegetation. Since the mirror symmetry axis of the alpha-pattern of the sunlit foliage is the solar-antisolar meridian, the azimuth direction of the sun, occluded by vegetation, can be assessed in forests from this polarization pattern. Possible consequences of this robust polarization feature of the optical environment in forests are briefly discussed with regard to polarization-based animal navigation.