We present five X-ray quasars behind the Small Magellanic Cloud, increasing the number of known quasars behind the SMC by ∼40%. They were identified via follow-up spectroscopy of serendipitous sources from the Chandra X-ray Observatory matched with objects from the OGLE database. All quasars lie behind dense parts of the SMC, and could be very useful for proper motion studies. We analyze X-ray ...

The topic of this paper is the sensitivity of the brightness of noctilucent clouds (NLC) on the ambient water vapour mixing ratio f(H2O). Firstly, we use state-of-the-art models of NLC layer formation to predict NLC brightness changes in response to changes in the 80 km mixing ratio f(H2O) for the two cases of ground-based 532 nm lidar observations at 69 N and for hemispheric satellite SBUV obs...

it is very important to determine the stable nitrogen isotope ratio for the nitrogenous substances in aerosols and the geochemistry behavior of stable nitrate ion isotopes in aerosols in order to elucidate the chemical and physical functions of clouds. hence, aerosol field sampling was conducted in the skies offshore from malibu beach and santa barbara, california, u.s.a. on 16 and 18 july 2009...

SCIAMACHY limb-scatter measurements allow the continuous mapping of noctilucent clouds (NLCs) as well as the retrieval of NLC particle sizes since 2002. Longterm measurements of NLC particle sizes require high instrument stability or an accurate knowledge of the changing calibration parameters. For the NLC measurements we employ measurements in SCIAMACHY channel 1, whose transmission decreased ...

A satellite remote sensing methodology has been developed to retrieve 3D ice water content (IWC) and mean effective ice crystal size of cirrus clouds from satellite data on the basis of a combination of the conventional retrieval of cloud optical depth and particle size in a horizontal plane and a parameterization of the vertical cloud profile involving temperature from sounding and/or analysis...