Short-term variability of extinction by broadband stellar photometry

Musat, Ileana	Florida State University
Ellingson, Robert	Florida State University

Aerosol optical depth over short-term intervals is determined from broadband observations of stars with a whole sky imager. The main difficulty in such measurements consists of accurately separating the star flux value from the non-stellar diffuse sky light. Using correction method to overcome this difficulty, the momochromatic extinction at the ground due to aerosols is extracted from heterochromatic measurements. A form of closure is achieved by comparison with simultaneous or temporally close measurements with other instruments, and the total error of the method, as a combination of random error of measurements and systematic error of calibration and model, is assessed as being between 2.6 and 3% rms.

This poster will be displayed at the ARM Science Team Meeting.