A New OH Airglow Imager at the Poker Flat Research Range for the Study of Gravity Waves, Instabilities, and Breaking.

This research aims to analyze and report on gravity wave events that take place over the Arctic region. The study will use an OH airglow imager set to deploy at the Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR) in Alaska, in fall 2021. The imager uses a Xeva Xenics camera which will view the near-infrared emission from 900 to 1700 nm, overlapping the OH Meinel bands. The imager will resolve small-scale gravity waves, breaking, and instabilities near ~86km.The poster presentation will include samples of new data taken by this imager, which will eventually be used with data collected by several other instruments at PFRR. The results will provide an opportunity to study gravity waves, instabilities, and breaking, which can cause turbulence near the spacecraft re-entry region, and deposit momentum resulting in drag on background mean winds.