Antarctic Sky Brightness Spectra from the Nigel Spectrometer

Dome A, Antarctica hosts optical sky brightness spectra collected by the Nigel spectrometer during the 2009 Austral winter. The dataset contains 55,182 observations across three fixed sky directions, measuring wavelengths from approximately 300 to 850 nm. It was produced by the PLATO instrument suite and archived by the Australian Antarctic Data Centre.

Use Cases

• Analyze airglow and aurora contributions to night sky brightness using calibrated spectral data from the red and blue fibers.
• Correlate sky brightness with solar altitude, lunar altitude, and lunar phase columns from the metadata file.
• Study temporal trends in optical background noise by examining the UNIX time and day number columns across 55,182 observations.
• Compare sky brightness across different viewing directions (north, west, zenith) using the reduced FITS images (e.g., nigel-BW.fits).
• Model the impact of CCD temperature on spectrometer readings by joining metadata with raw FITS image headers.

Strengths

• 55,182 observations provide a detailed temporal record of the 2009 winter.
• Data includes raw FITS images and reduced, calibrated spectra across six optical fibers.
• Metadata contains 15 columns with precise timestamps, exposure times, and celestial coordinates.

Limitations

• Data is from a single year (2009) and location, limiting generalizability.
• 246 observations were excluded from reduced datasets due to corruption.
• The dataset's age may not reflect current atmospheric or astronomical conditions.

Provenance

Source

PLATO (PLATeau Observatory) instrument suite, Nigel spectrometer.

Collection Method

Collected via a fiber-fed spectrometer with six fibers pointed in three fixed directions at Dome A.

Time Range

2009 Austral winter.

Freshness

null

Geography

Dome A, Antarctica.