Asynoptic Sampling Considerations for Wide-Field-of-View Measurements of Outgoing Radiation. Part I: Spatial and Temporal Resolution

Abstract

A detailed analysis is made of the spatial and temporal information content of wide-field-of-view (WFOV) measurements of outgoing radiation. Specifically, the spatial resolution of WFOV measurements, commensurate with sampling considerations, is determined. It is shown that asynoptic sampling introduces a more stringent limitation on the resolvable scales than that posed by the stability of the deconvolution procedure used to derive enhanced resolution maps of emitted radiation. In particular, the resolvable zonal wavenumber cannot be defined independently of the temporal behavior. It is demonstrated that the scales which may be unambiguously determined follow from characteristics of the asynoptic sampling, analogous to similar considerations which apply to narrow-field-of-view measurements. Orbital characteristics typical of the Nimbus series lead to zonal resolution out to approximately wavenumber 6.