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BaBy - The Background BypassThe Balloon Flight CampaignThe systematic observation of the UV nocturnal atmospheric background has been the main objective of the balloon borne experiment BaBy (Background Bypass).
BaBy is a scientific support activity to the evaluation of the sensitivty of
EUSO,
the Extreme Universe Space Observatory devoted to the observation of the
Extreme Energy Cosmic Rays from space, detecting the faint UV fluorescence light emitted by the atmosphere as a final
result of the cosmic rays interacting with the Earth's atmosphere.
For EUSO, in fact, one of the fundamental information concerns the knowledge of the UV nocturnal atmospheric background level.
Sources of UV nocturnal atmospheric background looking downward straight the Earth are: light pollution from cities,
planes and ships, naturally occurring bioluminescence, lightning flashes, reflected moonlight and starlight,
auroral flashes, low energy cosmic ray air showers and atmospheric chemical reactions.
BaBy flew from the Milo-Trapani base of the ASI (Italian Space Agency) in four different balloon flight campaigns:
1 - During the summer '98 balloon flight campaign at the Milo-Trapani base, a first version of the
BaBy instrument on the 30 July has flown looking down from an altitude of about 26 km of height,
over the territory of the west
Sicily and the Mediterranean sea for a duration time of 5 hours, in a clear night and moonless condition.
The UV background level measurements were made in the integrate wavelength band of 300-400 nm
and didn't take
into account the absorption of the ozone layer because of the not very high altitude reached by the balloon.
The brightness value measured over the sea was
450 photons m-2sr-1ns-1,
comparable with previous rocket observations.
The count rate profile and the trajectory during the first BaBy flight are shown here below. 
2 - In 1999 a second version of BaBy, able to measure both in the integrate wavelength band of 300-400 nm and in the narrow bands centered around 337, 357 and 391 nm (where lie the lines of emission of the atmospheric Nitrogen molecules) had, unfortunately, during the climb a failure.
3 - On 23-24 July 2001, due to a failure on the balloon, the final version of BaBy
flew from an altitude of 15 km up to 30 km over the land of the west Sicily, and only for a
duration time of about 3 hours.
This experiment was foreseen to look downward from about 40 km of altitude (above the ozone layer) the dark
nocturnal atmosphere over the sea during a transmediterranean flight.
Due to the balloon failure only few good
data was collect. There are only few minutes where the balloon was over a dark land at altitude of 30 km in
which brightness value was comparable with the previous one (1998).
Preliminary data profile and the trajectory of the flight are reported in the figure here below. 
4 - On July of 2002 BaBy had a new opportunity, offered by Italian Space Agency,
to repeat the measures a board of a transmediterranean balloon flight.
This flight was successful:
on the night of 10-11 July 2002 BaBy has flown, in a clear night and moonless condition,
from an altitude of 39 km over the Mediterranean sea, providing us with valuable good data
both in the integrate wavelength band of 300-400 nm
and in the three narrow bands at 337, 357 and 391 nm. The analysis of these data are in progress. 
The UV background fluxes have been evaluated from the detected count rates using the expression
reported in figure below. In the same figure the new values are also presented and compared with previous ones.
Finally it is also reported the UV data profiles in the 4 wavelenght bands. 
Other BaBy flights are foreseen in the future from different latitudes and under different environmental conditions to complete the program of systematic and exhaustive observations of the UV nocturnal atmospheric background. Balloon campaigns in South America (Brazil, Bolivia) and other Earth regions permit to measure the UV background at different latitude and different observational conditions like desert, forest, tableland, mountain, land and sea. BaBy has been tested and operated, before each launch, at ground. The test have been performed both at mountain and at sea level. Observations from ground of the Vega star (used as source candle), which light spectrum is known, have been made to calibrate the detectors.
The ExperimentThe last version of BaBy carried out measures by means of a couple of collimated fast photomultipliers (PMTs), one working in photon counting mode whereas the other in charge integration mode.The entire apparatus is composed by four couple of PMTs filtered with different filters. One couple is filtered with a BG1 optical filter and cover the whole wavelength band of interest (300-400 nm). The others are coupled with a narrow bandwidth interferential filters (10 nm) centered on the lines of emission of the atmospheric Nitrogen molecules (337, 357 and 391 nm).
 A schematic view of one module of the detector unit
To reduce the amount of light level seen by the PMTs (that is, the photoelectrons rate) and in order to allow the
PMT to work in a linear region and in safety conditions, each PMT is collimated in order to reduce the
field of view of a known geometrical factor (for example in our case, 1/100 str).
The characteristics of the PMTs used in our experiment are: fast response (< 5 ns),
high quantum efficiency (20-25 %) and high gain (> 106).
 The BaBy instrument ready to be integrated in the gondola of the balloon The BaBy instrument is composed by the following parts:
The TeamWith different commitments and tasks, the following IASF-Palermo personnel is part of the BaBy group:
Contact person:
Selected publications
Some useful links
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Salvo Giarrusso (BaBy Respons.) 