A limb atmospheric radiance inversion method based on a sun-synchronous orbit satellite

It is always affected by the influence of limb atmosphere when the space-based remote sensing systems detect spatial targets using limb observation mode. In this paper, the characteristics of the limb atmosphere and the impact of limb atmosphere to target observation are theoretical modeled. Based on the model, we propose an algorithm to compute the vertical structure of atmosphere radiance through the image of limb atmosphere as well as the star image. Realization of atmosphere radiance under similar situation can then be computed based on inversion algorithm proposed in the paper. The stellar images of different areas including areas over Antarctic and Equator are captured by in-orbit space borne camera. The method of how to inverse from the gray image to atmosphere limb radiance in engineering applications is described in detail and statistical analysis of the result of inversion to limb atmosphere radiance is conducted whose trend is consistent with simulation result of MODTRAN which increases at lower altitude to a peak value then drop to zero slowly while there are two peaks in the statistical radiance distribution curves illustrating the polar light over Antarctic.