A Dual Channel Lucky Imaging Camera for Solar System Studies. Performance, Calibration and Scientific Applications
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PLANETCAM-UPV/EHU: A DUAL CHANNEL LUCKY IMAGING CAMERA FOR SOLAR SYSTEM STUDIES. PERFORMANCE, CALIBRATION AND SCIENTIFIC APPLICATIONS by Iñigo Mendikoa Alonso Advisors: Agustín Sánchez-Lavega Santiago Pérez-Hoyos Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Department of Applied Physics I, Faculty of Engineering, UPV/EHU 2017 (c)2017 IÑIGO MENDIKOA ALONSO PlanetCam-UPV/EHU: A dual channel lucky imaging camera for Solar System studies Acknowledgements I would like to express my special gratitude to my thesis directors Agustin and Santi, who have supported me throughout all these years always with the right criteria and patience. Their invaluable expertise made me able to do things right at the first time where I would have otherwise lost so much time or even the right way. I also want to extend my gratitude to the rest of the Grupo de Ciencias Planetarias (GCP) team at the UPV-EHU, and in particular to Ricardo Hueso for his countless hours devoted to the development of the pipeline PLAYLIST as well as countless images processing, and José Felix Rojas for his support based on a deep expertise in all the technology relevant to PlanetCam. Making a PhD while having a different full time job is not an easy task, but within the GCP team, ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’, everything became much easier. In fact, I doubt I would have otherwise made the decision to go for a PhD in my circumstances. I thank Drs. Asuncion Illarramendi and Dr. Iñaki Bikandi from UPV/EHU for their continuous support during laboratory measurements and Javier Lopez from the Universidad Carlos III for his stellar spectrum synthetic models. I also want to remember our friend and outstanding astrophysicist Javier Gorosabel, who supported PlanetCam team and was also there at Calar Alto during our GRB afterglow detection in 2013. His decease is the only thing I would like to forget from all my PhD experience. Of course all this work would have been impossible without the observation ‘missions’ performed from 2012 to 2017 at Pic-du-Midi, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and, in particular, Calar Alto observatories. Special thanks to the staff at Calar Alto for their support in so many long nights throughout these years, making easy to me even the remote connections and other information technology stuff. And, after all, the food up there was not so bad. My family also had to suffer my absence not only during my trips to the observatories but also for many hours devoted to this work when I was expected to be with them, so somehow this work is also theirs. And last, but not least, this work was supported, in a different way, by the Spanish MICIIN projects (MINECO AYA2012-36666/AYA2015-65041-P, FEDER, UE), Grupos Gobierno Vasco and ‘Infraestructura’ grants from Gobierno Vasco (IT765-13) and UPV/EHU (INF13/74, INF15/37, UFI 11/55), as well as by Aula Espazio Gela funded by Diputación Foral de Bizkaia (OF-20/09/2012-2012-06274, 17-06-10-15-UPV 2-31-33- 2015-47). PlanetCam-UPV/EHU: A dual channel lucky imaging camera for Solar System studies Contents Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 PlanetCam-UPV/EHU ............................................................................................. 2 1.2 Objectives of PlanetCam ........................................................................................ 3 1.3 Goals and Structure of this Thesis ......................................................................... 6 Chapter 2 INSTRUMENT DESIGN AND LABORATORY TESTS ....................................................................... 9 2.1 General Instrument Description ............................................................................. 9 2.1.1 Configuration of PlanetCam1 .......................................................................... 9 2.1.2 Configuration of PlanetCam2 ........................................................................ 10 2.2 Visible Channel in PlanetCam 1 and 2 ................................................................. 15 2.2.1 VIS channel detector ..................................................................................... 15 2.2.2 sCMOS radiometric characterization ............................................................ 16 2.2.3 Visible channel filters .................................................................................... 19 2.2.4 Magnification optical systems of VIS channel ............................................... 23 2.3 The Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) Channel in PlanetCam2 ................................... 26 2.3.1 SWIR channel detector .................................................................................. 26 2.3.2 SWIR channel filters ...................................................................................... 28 2.3.3 Magnification optical system in PlanetCam2 SWIR channel ......................... 30 2.4 Camera Control .................................................................................................... 32 Chapter 3 PLANETCAM ASTRONOMICAL PERFORMANCE ....................................................................... 35 3.1 Lucky Imaging Processing .................................................................................... 35 3.2 Astronomical Characterization of PlanetCam ...................................................... 37 3.2.1 PSF and resolution on stars ........................................................................... 38 3.2.2 Resolution on planetary images .................................................................... 41 I Contents 3.2.3 Astrometry .................................................................................................... 42 3.2.4 Limiting magnitudes ...................................................................................... 46 Chapter 4 PLANETCAM PHOTOMETRIC CALIBRATION: JUPITER AND SATURN ........................................... 49 4.1 Observation Campaigns ....................................................................................... 49 4.2 Absolute Reflectivity Measurements ................................................................... 52 4.2.1 Photometric calibration ................................................................................ 52 4.2.2 Image acquisition and processing ................................................................. 55 4.3 Results .................................................................................................................. 59 4.3.1 Absolute Reflectivity values .......................................................................... 60 4.3.2 Uncertainty sources ...................................................................................... 65 4.4 Discussion ............................................................................................................. 80 4.4.1 Absolute Reflectivity comparison with reference values ............................. 80 4.4.2 Albedo ........................................................................................................... 86 Chapter 5 SCIENTIFIC APPLICATIONS OF PLANETCAM FOR SOLAR SYSTEM OBJECTS .................................. 89 5.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 89 5.2 Venus .................................................................................................................... 98 5.3 Mars ................................................................................................................... 103 5.4 Jupiter ................................................................................................................ 105 5.4.1 Jupiter in time and wavelength ................................................................... 105 5.4.2 Jupiter temporal changes in Absolute Reflectivity ..................................... 110 5.4.3 Radiative Transfer modeling ....................................................................... 115 5.4.4 Cloud morphology and Zonal Wind studies ................................................ 117 5.5 Saturn ................................................................................................................. 125 5.5.1 Saturn in time and wavelength ................................................................... 125 5.5.2 Saturn temporal changes in Absolute Reflectivity ...................................... 127 5.5.3 Atmospheric dynamics ................................................................................ 131 5.6 Uranus and Neptune .......................................................................................... 134 5.7 Other Objects ..................................................................................................... 139 II PlanetCam-UPV/EHU: A dual channel lucky imaging camera for Solar System studies Chapter 6 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS ............................................................................. 143 6.1 Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 143 6.2 Future Prospects ................................................................................................. 149 References .................................................................................................................... 151 Appendix ......................................................................................................................