Fine‐scale visualization of aurora in a wide area using color digital camera images from the international space station

Abstract

<div lang="en" class="abs"><p class="abs_header">Abstract</p><p>The full‐color photographs of aurora have been taken with digital single‐lens reflex cameras mounted on the International Space Station (ISS). Since these photographs do not have accurate time and geographical information, in order to use them as scientific data, it is necessary to calibrate the imaging parameters (such as looking direction and angle of view of the camera) of the photographs. For this purpose, we calibrated the imaging parameters using a city light image taken from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellite following the method of Hozumi et al. (2016, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-016-0532-z">https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-016-0532-z</a>). We mapped the photographs onto the geographic coordinate system using the calibrated imaging parameters. To evaluate the accuracy of the mapping, we compared the aurora taken simultaneously from ISS and ground. Comparing the spatial structure of discrete aurora and the temporal variation of pulsating aurora, the accuracy of the data set is less than 0.3 s in time and less than 5 km in space in the direction perpendicular to the looking direction of the camera. The generated data set has a wide field of view (~ 1,100 × 900 km), and their temporal resolution is less than 1 s. Not only that, the field of view can sweep a wide area (~ 3,000 km in longitude) in a short time (~ 10 min). Thus, this new imaging capability will enable us to capture the evolution of fine‐scale spatial structure of aurora in a wide area.</p></div>