The Astronomical Journal (Jan 2023)
SKYSURF-4: Panchromatic Hubble Space Telescope All-Sky Surface-brightness Measurement Methods and Results
- Rosalia O’Brien,
- Timothy Carleton,
- Rogier A. Windhorst,
- Rolf A. Jansen,
- Delondrae Carter,
- Scott Tompkins,
- Sarah Caddy,
- Seth H. Cohen,
- Haley Abate,
- Richard G. Arendt,
- Jessica Berkheimer,
- Annalisa Calamida,
- Stefano Casertano,
- Simon P. Driver,
- Connor Gelb,
- Zak Goisman,
- Norman Grogin,
- Daniel Henningsen,
- Isabela Huckabee,
- Scott J. Kenyon,
- Anton M. Koekemoer,
- Darby Kramer,
- John Mackenty,
- Aaron Robotham,
- Steven Sherman
Affiliations
- Rosalia O’Brien
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Timothy Carleton
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Rogier A. Windhorst
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Rolf A. Jansen
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Delondrae Carter
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Scott Tompkins
- ORCiD
- The University of Western Australia , M468, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
- Sarah Caddy
- ORCiD
- Macquarie University , Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
- Seth H. Cohen
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Haley Abate
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Richard G. Arendt
- ORCiD
- UMBC/CRESST2, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
- Jessica Berkheimer
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Annalisa Calamida
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21210, USA
- Stefano Casertano
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21210, USA
- Simon P. Driver
- ORCiD
- International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the International Space Centre (ISC), The University of Western Australia , M468, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
- Connor Gelb
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Zak Goisman
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Norman Grogin
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21210, USA
- Daniel Henningsen
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Isabela Huckabee
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- Scott J. Kenyon
- ORCiD
- Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Anton M. Koekemoer
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21210, USA
- Darby Kramer
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- John Mackenty
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21210, USA
- Aaron Robotham
- ORCiD
- International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the International Space Centre (ISC), The University of Western Australia , M468, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
- Steven Sherman
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287-1404, USA ; [email protected]
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/acccee
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 165,
no. 6
p. 237
Abstract
The diffuse, unresolved sky provides most of the photons that the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) receives, yet remains poorly understood. The HST Archival Legacy program SKYSURF aims to measure the 0.2–1.6 μ m sky surface brightness (sky-SB) from over 140,000 HST images. We describe a sky-SB measurement algorithm designed for SKYSURF that is able to recover the input sky-SB from simulated images to within 1% uncertainty. We present our sky-SB measurements estimated using this algorithm on the entire SKYSURF database. Comparing our sky-SB spectral energy distribution (SED) to measurements from the literature shows general agreements. Our SKYSURF SED also reveals a possible dependence on the Sun angle, indicating either nonisotropic scattering of solar photons off interplanetary dust or an additional component to zodiacal light. Finally, we update the diffuse light limits in the near-IR based on the methods from Carleton et al., with values of 0.009 MJy sr ^−1 (22 nW m ^−2 sr ^−1 ) at 1.25 μ m, 0.015 MJy sr ^−1 (32 nW m ^−2 sr ^−1 ) at 1.4 μ m, and 0.013 MJy sr ^−1 (25 nW m ^−2 sr ^−1 ) at 1.6 μ m. These estimates provide the most stringent all-sky constraints to date in this wavelength range. SKYSURF sky-SB measurements are made public on the official SKYSURF website and will be used to constrain diffuse light in future papers.
Keywords
