Publication Date:
2016-07-24
Description:
The Imager for Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightning (ISUAL) was the first specifically dedicated instrument to observe lightning-induced transient luminous events (TLE) sprites, elves, halos, and gigantic jets from space. The Imager is an intensified CCD system operating in the visible wavelength region with a filter wheel to select from 6 positions with filters. The Imager has a 5°x20° (vertical x horizontal) field of view (FOV). The Spectrophotometer (SP) is populated with 6 photometers with individual filters for emissions from the far ultra-violet to the near-infrared. An Array Photometer with two channels operating in the blue and red provides altitude profiles of the emission over 16 altitude bins each. The Associated Electronics Package (AEP) controls instrument functions and interfaces with the spacecraft. ISUAL was launched May 21, 2004 into a sun-synchronous 890 km orbit on the Formosat-2 satellite and has successfully been collecting data ever since. ISUAL is running on the night side of the orbit and is pointed to the east of the orbit down towards the limb. The instrument runs continuously and writes data to a circular buffer. Whenever the SP detects a sudden signal increase above a preset threshold, a trigger signal is generated that commands the system to keep the data for about 400 msec starting from ~50 msec before the trigger. Over its lifetime of ~11 years the system recorded thousands of TLE and also successfully observed aurora and airglow.
Print ISSN:
0148-0227
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Physics
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