Abstract:
First-time airglow observations of the nighttime thermospheric wind from an in-house developed
ground-based Fabry–Perot Interferometer are recorded from the Kolhapur location of India. This was
the first attempt to build such an instrument, and thus the quality of the data recorded in the field is
satisfactory. The instrument has been thoroughly calibrated in the laboratory, and the accuracy of the
important parameter finesse of the etalon is found to be ≈94% in agreement with the value supplied by
the manufacturer. The airglow observations from the field indicate that the vertical wind observed
looking toward Zenith over the course of the night is zero, ensuring a 100% accuracy. However, the
temperature measurements were found to be approximately 30% in agreement with the measurements repoted in literature. To improve this measurement, improvements in the optical design need
to be made. The paper concludes with conclusions and a brief idea of the proposed improvisations in
the design.
