An image intensifier-vidicon system for auroral cinematography

Fine structure of optical aurora

“…The field of view depended on the lens used. The system of Davis and Hicks (1964) had a field of view of 161 and the system of Scourfield and Parsons (1969) had normally 331. Now the temporal and spatial behaviour of the small-scale structures could be established, at least for the part of the image close to magnetic zenith.…”

“…In Alaska Davis and Hicks (1964) used an Image orthicon tube and in Canada Scourfield and Parsons (1969) used a Vidicon system. These cameras operated at video frame rates, 25-30 frames per second, but with rather poor dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio.…”

Effective lifetime of O(1S) in pulsating aurora

“…Whereas previous work has been done with the photometers recording only integrated light intensity in the appropriate wavelengths over the full field of view without any detailed record of the changing spatial characteristics such as form, size, and motion of the aurora, the present study has been made with the use of a television-type image-recording procedure. The principal features of the system employed have been described elsewhere [Scourfield and Parsons, 1969 Although means are available whereby suitable signals representing :•5577 and •3914 intensities over any selected region within the field of view can be extracted electronically from the video signal and digitized for analysis, the data presented here have been obtained by placing small light sensors on the face of a TV monitor on which the tape is played back. Stars in the two images provide useful reference points, which allow careful placement of the sensors over exactly corresponding small regions of effective diameter 0.7 ø within the total 7 ø X 7 ø field of view, which included the magnetic zenith throughout the recording period.…”

Fine‐Scale Visualization of Aurora in a Wide Area Using Color Digital Camera Images From the International Space Station

“…Especially, ground-based optical observations have been carried out since 1960s. In the early stage of ground-based observations, the images are recorded at the video rate (30 Hz) (e.g., Davis, 1966;Scourfield & Parsons, 1969). Recently, the Electron Multiplying Charge Coupled Device (EMCCD) all-sky imagers (ASIs) are used to obtain images with further improved temporal resolution such as 0.01 s (i.e., 100 Hz sampling) (e.g., Nishiyama et al, 2012;Ozaki et al, 2016).…”