Spectroscopic Measurements of Natural and Artificial Light Sources

Abstract

A twenty-night field investigation at the site where reportedly Marfa lights have most been observed was conducted. We made considerable progress in developing a technique to identify false positives and to estimate their distance based on the absorption of molecular oxygen at 762 nm band using the spectroscopic data alone (Stephan, Ghimire, Stapleton, & Bunnell, 2009). Spectroscopic studies of a type of glow discharge supported by natural porous rock which covers relatively wide area of the rock, up to 2 cm in diameter, are presented. The rotational, translational and vibrational temperatures of the discharge are measured by comparing modeled optical emission spectra with spectroscopic measurements from the discharge. Finally, an absolute calibration technique for our spectroscopic system is presented.