A customizable wide field-of-view multiband imager for lunar atmospheric Studies

Ground based observations have indicated that at times the lunar Sodium atmosphere extends beyond the Earth. However, to date no experiment has been conducted to perform an extended duration, in-situ observation of the lunar atmosphere.  We have designed a small (10 × 10 × 10 cm³ and a mass of 1.3 Kg), multi-band imager that operates in the CCD-band (approximately, 450 – 900 nm). The instrument is easily tailored to meet a specific application by selecting the appropriate combination of interference filters. If such an instrument is placed on a lunar orbiting platform, it will generate a long-term database to study the morphology of the lunar atmosphere or surface features observable in this band.

The instrument has an angular resolution of 0.1^◦and a field of view of 35^◦× 25^◦. This large field of view is shared by a mosaic of interference filters chosen for a specific application. The instrument uses a custom-designed computer program for automatic exposure control and communicates using standard serial and ethernet protocols.

This design has been validated using commercial off-the-shelf components for sodium and potassium resonance emissions at 589 nm and 770 nm, respectively.