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24 January 2017 Daytime sky polarization calibration limitations
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Abstract
The daytime sky has recently been demonstrated as a useful calibration tool for deriving polarization cross-talk properties of large astronomical telescopes. The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope and other large telescopes under construction can benefit from precise polarimetric calibration of large mirrors. Several atmospheric phenomena and instrumental errors potentially limit the technique’s accuracy. At the 3.67-m AEOS telescope on Haleakala, we performed a large observing campaign with the HiVIS spectropolarimeter to identify limitations and develop algorithms for extracting consistent calibrations. Effective sampling of the telescope optical configurations and filtering of data for several derived parameters provide robustness to the derived Mueller matrix calibrations. Second-order scattering models of the sky show that this method is relatively insensitive to multiple-scattering in the sky, provided calibration observations are done in regions of high polarization degree. The technique is also insensitive to assumptions about telescope-induced polarization, provided the mirror coatings are highly reflective. Zemax-derived polarization models show agreement between the functional dependence of polarization predictions and the corresponding on-sky calibrations.
CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.
David M. Harrington, Jeffrey R. Kuhn, and Arturo López Ariste "Daytime sky polarization calibration limitations," Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 3(1), 018001 (24 January 2017). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JATIS.3.1.018001
Received: 16 November 2016; Accepted: 30 November 2016; Published: 24 January 2017
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CITATIONS
Cited by 17 scholarly publications.
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KEYWORDS
Polarization

Calibration

Telescopes

Sun

Scattering

Modulation

Atmospheric modeling

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