Extragalactic Background Light at 5100 AA

Dube, R. R.; Wickes, W. C.; Wilkinson, David T.

doi:10.1086/182475

Cited by 54 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…The open circles from 0.8 to 0.3 km are from Bernstein (1999). The open squares are from Dube, Wicks, & Wilkinson (1977) and Toller (1983). The open diamond at 0.15 km is from Hurwitz, Bowyer, & Martin (1991).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DIRBE minus 2MASS: Confirming the Cosmic Infrared Background at 2.2 Microns

Wright¹

2001

ApJ

102

157

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Stellar Ñuxes from the Two Micron All Sky Survey catalog are used to remove the contribution owing to Galactic stars from the intensity measured by the Di †use Infrared Background Experiment in four regions in the north and south Galactic polar caps. After subtracting the interplanetary and Galactic foregrounds, a consistent residual intensity of 14.8^4.6 kJy sr~1 or 20.2^6.3 nW m~2 sr~1 at 2.2 km is found. At 1.25 km the residuals show more scatter and are a much smaller fraction of the foreground, leading to a weak limit on the cosmic infrared background of 12.0^6.8 kJy sr~1 or 28.9^16.3 nW m~2 sr~1 (1 p).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DIRBE minus 2MASS: Confirming the Cosmic Infrared Background at 2.2 Microns

Wright¹

2001

ApJ

102

157

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“…In some previous attempts to measure the optical EBL, even light from discrete, resolved stars was difficult to subtract because of poor detector resolution (see, e.g., Dube et al 1979;Toller 1983). In HST/WFPC2 images, however, Galactic stars in the field can be easily identified and subtracted, with negligible residual contribution to the errors in our final results.…”

Section: Discrete Stars and Diffuse Galactic Lightmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The mean flux and line strengths of the molecular, atomic, and continuum emission that produce '' airglow '' can vary by several percent on timescales of minutes because of changes in atmospheric column densities throughout the night, stimulation by small meteorites, and photochemical excitation and deexcitation within several hours of twilight (see Chamberlain 1961 for background; Dube et al 1979;Paper II). The mean airglow flux can be predicted based on the line-of-sight path length through the atmosphere, but the accuracy of this method is limited to a few percent.…”

Section: Terrestrial Airglow and Extinctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The mean airglow flux can be predicted based on the line-of-sight path length through the atmosphere, but the accuracy of this method is limited to a few percent. Airglow subtraction has dominated the errors in several previous attempts to measure the EBL (see Dube et al 1979 and the discussion in Mattila 1990). However, the only significant airglow emission seen in the upper atmosphere from HST occurs at wavelengths shorter than 2000 Å and only on the daytime side of the orbit (see Lyons et al 1993 and references therein).…”

Section: Terrestrial Airglow and Extinctionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The First Detections of the Extragalactic Background Light at 3000, 5500, and 8000 Å. I. Results

Bernstein

Freedman

Madore

2002

ApJ

155

166

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We present the first detection of the mean flux of the optical extragalactic background light (EBL) at 3000, 5500, and 8000 Å . Diffuse foreground flux at these wavelengths comes from terrestrial airglow, dust-scattered sunlight (zodiacal light), and dust-scattered Galactic starlight (diffuse Galactic light). We have avoided the brightest of these, terrestrial airglow, by measuring the absolute surface brightness of the night sky from above the Earth's atmosphere using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and Faint Object Spectrograph, both on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). On the ground we have used the du Pont 2.5 m Telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory (LCO) to obtain contemporaneous spectrophotometry of '' blank '' sky in the HST field of view to measure and then subtract foreground zodiacal light from the HST observations. We have minimized the diffuse Galactic light in advance by selecting the HST target field along a line of sight with low Galactic dust column density and then estimated the low-level Galactic foreground using a simple scattering model and the observed correlation between thermal, 100 lm emission, and optical scattered flux from the same dust. In this paper, we describe the coordinated LCO/HST program and the HST observations and data reduction and present the resulting measurements of the EBL. Galaxies brighter than V ¼ 23 AB mag are not well sampled in an image the size of the WFPC2 field of view. We have therefore measured the EBL from unresolved and resolved galaxies fainter than V ¼ 23 AB mag by masking out brighter galaxies. We write this as EBL23 to emphasize this bright magnitude cutoff. From absolute surface photometry using WFPC2 and ground-based spectroscopy, we find mean values for the EBL23 of 4.0 (AE2.5), 2.7 (AE1.4), and 2.2 (AE1.0) in units of 10 À9 ergs s À1 cm À2 sr À1 Å À1 in the F300W, F555W, and F814W bandpasses, respectively. The errors quoted are 1 combined statistical and systematic uncertainties. The total flux measured in resolved galaxies with V > 23 AB mag by standard photometric methods is roughly 15% of the EBL23 flux in each band. We have also developed a new method of source photometry, uniquely suited to these data, with which we can measure the ensemble flux from detectable sources much more accurately than is possible with standard methods for faint galaxy photometry. Using this method, we have quantified systematic biases affecting standard galaxy photometry, which prevent light from being recovered in isophotes within a few percent of the sky level. These biases have a significant effect on faint galaxy counts. The flux from resolved sources as measured by our ensemble photometry method is 3.2 (AE0.22), 0.89 (AE0.01), and 0.76 (AE0.01) in units of 10 À9 ergs s À1 cm À2 sr À1 Å À1 in the F300W, F555W, and F814W bandpasses, respectively, with 1 combined errors. These values, the total flux from resolved sources, represent absolute minima for the EBL23 in each band and are roughly 30% of the mean flux we measure for the total EBL23.

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“…If during formation galaxies underwent a phase of high luminosity, as suggested by Partridge and Peebles (1967a) and Cox (1985), they might be visible today as a bright background of unresolved objects. A number of observers have attempted to detect this light at visible wavelengths, but thus far only upper limits have been obtained (Roach and Smith 1968;Dube, Wickes, and Wilkinson 1977;Spinrad and Stone 1978;Toller 1981). These upper limits are all on the order of v/ v = 3 x 10~5 ergs cm" 2 s" 1 sr" 1 and, therefore, conflict with the positive result of 9 x 10" 5 ergs cm" 2 s" 1 sr" 1 obtained at 0.4 /zm by Mattila (1976).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A search for extragalactic background light using the dark cloud L134

Boughn¹,

Kuhn²

1986

ApJ

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CCD surface photometry at 0.65 jum and single-aperture photometry at 2.2 /un on the dark molecular cloud, LI34, and on nearby blank sky, were carried out at levels of 10~3 and less than 10" 4 of the brightness of the night sky, respectively. Presumably because of reflected galactic light, the cloud appeared bright compared to the reference sky at both these wavelengths. Relative to blank fields, the darkest positions on the cloud had intensities, v/ v , of 1 x 10-5 ergs cm" 2 s _1 sr-1 at 0.65 /zm and 4 x 10-5 ergs cm-2 s _1 sr-1 at 2.2 /un. Since the magnitude of the reflected light is unknown, one cannot deduce the level of the extragalactic background light (EBL); however, either the EBL is on the order of or smaller than these values, or the reflected light and the EBL fortuitously cancel.

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Extragalactic Background Light at 5100 AA

Cited by 54 publications

References 0 publications

DIRBE minus 2MASS: Confirming the Cosmic Infrared Background at 2.2 Microns

DIRBE minus 2MASS: Confirming the Cosmic Infrared Background at 2.2 Microns

The First Detections of the Extragalactic Background Light at 3000, 5500, and 8000 Å. I. Results

A search for extragalactic background light using the dark cloud L134

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