Observing gravity wave activity in the mesopause region by means of airglow tomography Original Research Article

The possibility of reconstructing a two-dimensional vertical cross section of structures in mesospheric airglow by means of tomographic inversion is investigated. A chain of cameras in a line on the ground level is assumed and the data to be inverted consist of luminosity curves from scans of airglow images. Results of inverting simulated data indicates that reconstruction of tilted structures due to gravity waves should be possible. This method should therefore allow the determination of the vertical wavelength as well as the horizontal wave parameters. The desirable number of cameras in a chain is discussed. An example of results obtained from a two-camera experiment using all-sky optics is also presented.