An experiment to measure slant path extinction in the marine boundary layer.

Abstract

An experiment to measure atmospheric extinction, along a slant path in the marine boundary layer, was devised and partially constructed. The slant path is from a kytoon, flown from a ship in motion, to a gyro-stabilized platform mounted on shipboard. The light source on the kytoon is an omni-directional high pressure xenon flash lamp, with a quartz envelope, to provide radiation from the visible to the middle IR regions of the spectrum. Wavelengths of 0.4880 µn, 0.6328 µm, 1.06 µm, 1.25 µm, 1.60 µm, 2 .20 µm, and 3.80 µm are isolated by use of interference filters. The range, needed in the process of determining extinction is obtained by a ranging system composed of a GaAs pulsing laser with optics mounted on the gyro-platform on shipboard, a retro-reflecting system on the kytoon, a receiver coaxial with the transmitter on shipboard, and a HP-1743A 100 MHz ocsilloscope. The pulsed laser also triggers the flashlamp on the kytoon so that synchronous detection techniques can be utilized for extinction measurements at the receivers.