Ultraviolet spectrum of the sky background at different galactic latitudes.

The intensity distributions of the sky background radiation in the 1100-1850 A range were measured in deep space (70,000-200,000 km from the earth) by the Prognoz-6 photoelectric spectrometer. Spectral distributions of UV background I_lambda, after subtraction of the stellar component, vary with galactic latitude in the range bII equals minus 58 to plus 27 deg. I_lambda decreases with increasing wavelength at high latitudes; the spectrum then becomes flat at intermediate latitudes, and there is a rapid decrease of I_lambda with lambda near and inside the Milky Way. The intensity I(lambda equals 1600) in the higher latitude range (the absolute value of bII higher than 30 deg) shows good correlation with soft X-ray brightness and neutral hydrogen (21-cm) density N(H I). However, there is appreciable UV emission near the galactic poles where N(H I) is approximately zero