Cosmic-ray spikes localization and correction in FT spectrometer data

Bolometric infrared detectors are the best choice for sensitive radiometric measurements in the far infrared and millimeter wave spectral region. Nevertheless, these devices, when operating on board high-altitude balloons or aircrafts, are also affected by cosmic-ray (CR) crossing of the detector elements. Each of these events degrades the radiometric data on a time scale that depends on the detector's characteristics. In this paper, we describe an automatic procedure based on discrete wavelet transform that can be used to localize CR events in the data flow, even when they occur in correspondence with high signal levels, and to optimally remove them for minimum data loss. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.