Titan's haze structure in 1999 from spatially-resolved narrowband imaging surrounding the 0.94 μm methane window -: art. no. L17S06

We use narrowband images of Titan obtained in November 1999 to explore the haze vertical structure in Titan's lower atmosphere. The images were taken with the Mount Wilson 2.54 m telescope using the NASA/GSFC-built Acousto-Optic Imaging Spectrometer. These images were recorded at five wavelengths surrounding the 0.94 mum methane window and are sensitive to a range of altitudes in Titan's lower atmosphere. We characterize Titan's limb darkening by fitting the Minnaert function limb darkening coefficient k to our data at 0degrees latitude and compare our observed limb darkening to that predicted from three radiative transfer models. The vertical haze profiles suggest a gap in haze below 75 km, with an increase in haze abundance near the surface.