The word “thermograph” often used to describe both an instrument and the product of that instrument has as its roots the Greek words thermos and gruphos. The latter means a sketch or pictorial representation; thus, the graphic arts, scientific graphs, photographs, etc. The former relates to heat or temperature. At first reading, then, the word “thermograph” is most appropriate for a graphical r...

The images acquired by microwave sensors are blurry and have low resolution. On the other hand, the images obtained using infrared/visible sensors are often of higher resolution. In this paper, we develop a data fusion methodology and apply it to enhance the resolution of a microwave image using the data from a collocated infrared/visible sensor. Such an approach takes advantage of the spatial ...

The Spaceborne Atmospheric Infrared Sounder for Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (SIRAS-G) represents a new approach to infrared atmospheric sounding of the Earth from geosynchronous orbit. SIRAS-G, one of nine proposals selected for development under NASA’s 2002 Instrument Incubator Program, is an instrument development effort for an instrument of less mass and power than heritage sounding instrumen...

Spectra measured by remote-sensing Fourier transform infrared spectrometers are often calibrated using two calibration sources. At wavenumbers where the absorption coefficient is large, air within the optical path of the instrument can absorb most calibration-source signal, resulting in extreme errors. In this paper, a criterion in terms of the instrument responsivity is used to identify such w...

Michael R. Descour, MEMBER SPIE University of Arizona Optical Sciences Center Tucson, Arizona 85721 Abstract. We describe three instrument effects that cause polarized infrared images of a blackbody source to exhibit intriguing polarization dependence and image nonuniformity. The origins of these problems are reflection of background radiation from the wire-grid polarizer and frictional heating...

A variety of optical and electro-optical instruments are used for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications to the human eye. These generally expose ocular structures to either coherent or incoherent optical radiation (ultraviolet, visible, or infrared radiation) under unique conditions. We convert both laser and incoherent exposure guidelines derived for normal exposure conditions to the ap...

Measuring pollutant concentrations in the boundary layer of the atmosphere is a major challenge for air quality. Infrared sounding, providing vertically resolved profiles for several trace gases in the troposphere, is a must for pollution observation. In this framework, CNES is currently leading a phase-A study for SIFTI, a Static Infrared Fourier Transform Interferometer devoted principally to...