A BAMM (balloon altitude mosaic measurements) flight was launched in April 1982 to obtain data on the earth/atmosphere IR background during the early hours of sunrise looking at low angle specular reflections. The data were obtained by a filtered radiometer and an interferometer in the spectral region 2.5 - 5.5 micrometers. The data from the radiometer were processed for their statistical content and for comparison within the passband of the filter with the interferometer. The interferometer data were analyzed for their wavelength spectral content and compared with predictions from LOWTRAN. We have concluded that new features occurred in the SWIR and MWIR under low solar scatter angle conditions which were not found in other flights, in particular, there were several simultaneous solar reflection mechanisms at work and these produced highly variable effects.

Date Published: 19 January 1984
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 0430, Infrared Technology IX, (19 January 1984); doi: 10.1117/12.936379

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0430:
Infrared Technology IX
Richard A. Mollicone; Irving J. Spiro, Editor(s)