Search for Gravity Waves with a New All-sky Camera System

Abstract

Gravity waves have been searched for with a new all-sky camera system over Korean Peninsular. The all-sky camera consists of a 37 mm/F4.5 Mamiya fisheye lens with a 180 deg field of view, interference filters and a 1024 by 1024 CCD camera. The all-sky camera has been tested near Daejeon city, and moved to Mt. Bohyun where the largest astronomical telescope is operated in Korea. A clear wave pattern was successfully detected in OH filter images over Mt. Bohyun on July 18, 2001, indicating that small scale coherent gravity waves perturbed OH airglow near the mesopause. Other wave features are since then observed with Na 589.8 nm and OI 630.0 nm filters. Since a Japanese all-sky camera network has already detected traveling ionospheric disturbances (TID) over the northeast-southwest range of Japanese islands, we hope our all-sky camera extends the coverage of the TID's observations to the west direction. We plan to operate our all-sky camera all year around to study seasonal variation of wave activities over the mid-latitude upper atmosphere.