Internal Sun reference spectra

Internal Sun reference spectra#

Although the Sun is not a necessary reference for photometric calculations, we provide observed and theoretical references for the solar spectrum following Colina, Bohlin, & Castelli 1996.

The observed solar spectrum comes from CALSPEC sun_reference_stis_001.fits which provides the ultraviolet to near-infrared absolute flux distribution of the Sun covering the 0.12-2.5 μm wavelength range. The solar reference spectrum combines absolute flux measurements from satellites and from the ground with a model spectrum for the near-infrared.

The theoretical spectrum comes from the Kurucz’93 atlas: sun_kurucz93.fitsftp://ftp.stsci.edu/cdbs/grid/k93models/standards/sun_kurucz93.fits The theoretical spectrum is scaled to match the observed spectrum from 1.5 - 2.5 microns, and then it is used where the observed spectrum ends. The theoretical model of the Sun uses the following parameters when the Sun is at 1 au:

Solar Parameters#

log_Z

T_eff

log_g

V_{Johnson}

+0.0

5777

+4.44

-26.75

The interface to the Sun templates is given through the pyphot.sun.Sun class.