Midcourse Space Experiment/Ultraviolet and Visible Imaging and Spectrographic Imaging limb observations of combined proton/hydrogen/electron aurora

Simultaneous measurements of auroral limb H Lyman a:, H Balmer ct, H Balmer beta, N-2(+) 1 NG 391.4-nm, and N-2 2 PG 337.1-nm emissions excited by combined proton/hydrogen/electron precipitation are reported. The data were recorded by the Ultraviolet and Visible Imaging and Spectrographic Imaging (UVISI) spectrographic imagers on the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite on November 10, 1996, while viewing a diffuse emission region during a limb-scanning data collection event. Energy fluxes associated with the electron and proton/hydrogen precipitation components are estimated with one-dimensional fits to selected limb profiles using a transport-theoretic model. Spectral radiances (110-900 nm) are also presented. The data presented here are but one example of the large number of MSX/UVISI data sets that have been collected offering opportunities for scientific investigations of auroral emission phenomena and for retrieval of composition and particle precipitation parameters from optical remote sensing data.