Research articles

search articles

My Pages

Stat

Members: 3645
Articles: 2'500'096
Articles rated: 2609

18 April 2024

» arxiv » 2011.03052

Article overview

New Horizons Observations of the Cosmic Optical Background
Tod R. Lauer ; Marc Postman ; Harold A. Weaver ; John R. Spencer ; S. Alan Stern ; Marc W. Buie ; Daniel D. Durda ; Carey M. Lisse ; A. R. Poppe ; Richard P. Binzel ; Daniel T. Britt ; Bonnie J. Buratti ; Andrew F. Cheng ; W.M. Grundy ; Mihaly Horanyi J.J. Kavelaars ; Ivan R. Linscott ; William B. McKinnon ; Jeffrey M. Moore ; J. I. Nuñez Catherine B. Olkin ; Joel W. Parker ; Simon B. Porter ; Dennis C. Reuter ; Stuart J. Robbins ; Paul Schenk ; Mark R. Showalter ; Kelsi N. Singer ; Anne. J. Verbiscer ; Leslie A. Youn ;
Date:	5 Nov 2020
Abstract:	We used existing data from the New Horizons LORRI camera to measure the optical-band ($0.4lesssimlambdalesssim0.9{ mmu m}$) sky brightness within seven high galactic latitude fields. The average raw level measured while New Horizons was 42 to 45 AU from the Sun is $33.2pm0.5{ m ~nW ~m^{-2} ~sr^{-1}}.$ This is $sim10 imes$ darker than the darkest sky accessible to the {it Hubble Space Telescope}, highlighting the utility of New Horizons for detecting the cosmic optical background (COB). Isolating the COB contribution to the raw total requires subtracting scattered light from bright stars and galaxies, faint stars below the photometric detection-limit within the fields, and diffuse Milky Way light scattered by infrared cirrus. We remove newly identified residual zodiacal light from the IRIS $100mu$m all sky maps to generate two different estimates for the diffuse galactic light (DGL). Using these yields a highly significant detection of the COB in the range ${ m 15.9pm 4.2 (1.8~stat., 3.7~sys.) ~nW ~m^{-2} ~sr^{-1}}$ to ${ m 18.7pm 3.8 (1.8~stat., 3.3 ~sys.)~ nW ~m^{-2} ~sr^{-1}}$ at the LORRI pivot wavelength of 0.608 $mu$m. Subtraction of the integrated light of galaxies (IGL) fainter than the photometric detection-limit from the total COB level leaves a diffuse flux component of unknown origin in the range ${ m 8.8pm4.9 (1.8 ~stat., 4.5 ~sys.) ~nW ~m^{-2} ~sr^{-1}}$ to ${ m 11.9pm4.6 (1.8 ~stat., 4.2 ~sys.) ~nW ~m^{-2} ~sr^{-1}}$. Explaining it with undetected galaxies requires the galaxy-count faint-end slope to steepen markedly at $V>24$ or that existing surveys are missing half the galaxies with $V< 30$
Source:	arXiv, 2011.03052
Services:	Forum \| Review \| PDF \| Favorites

No review found.

Did you like this article?

This article or document is ...
important:
of broad interest:
readable:
new:
correct:
Global appreciation:

Note: answers to reviews or questions about the article must be posted in the forum section.
Authors are not allowed to review their own article. They can use the forum section.

browser claudebot

ScienXe.org
» my Online CV
» Free

News, job offers and information for researchers and scientists:

home

contact

sitemap