Sun/Moon photometer for the Cherenkov Telescope Array - first results

TL;DR

This paper discusses the use of a Sun/Moon photometer at the Cherenkov Telescope Array site for atmospheric monitoring, calibration, and aerosol optical depth retrieval, providing initial results from two months of data.

Contribution

It introduces a calibration method for nocturnal measurements and a modified cloud-screening technique for aerosol optical depth retrieval at the CTA site.

Findings

Distribution of aerosol optical depths in four passbands

Calibration method for nocturnal measurements

Modified cloud-screening technique

Abstract

Determination of the energy and flux of the gamma photons by Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique is strongly dependent on optical properties of the atmosphere. Therefore, atmospheric monitoring during the future observations of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) as well as anticipated long-term monitoring in order to characterize overal properties and annual variation of atmospheric conditions are very important. Several instruments are already installed at the CTA sites in order to monitor atmospheric conditions on long-term. One of them is a Sun/Moon photometer CE318-T, installed at the Southern CTA site. Since the photometer is installed at a place with very stable atmospheric conditions, it can be also used for characterization of its performance and testing of new methods of aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieval, cloud-screening and calibration. In this work, we describe our calibration method for nocturnal measurements and the modification of cloud-screening for purposes of nocturnal AOD retrieval. We applied these methods on two months of observations and present the distribution of AODs in four photometric passbands together with their uncertainties.