OH populations and temperatures from simultaneous spectroscopic observations of 25 bands

OH rotational temperatures are widely used to derive mesopause temperatures and their variations. Since most data sets are only based on a fixed set of lines of a single band, it is important to know possible systematic un- certainties related to the choice of lines. Therefore, a com- prehensive study of as many OH bands as possible is desir- able. For this purpose, astronomical echelle spectrographs at large telescopes are the most suitable instruments. They of- fer a wide wavelength coverage, relatively high spectral res- olution, and high sensitivity. Moreover, since each ground- based astronomical observation has an imprint of the Earth's atmosphere, the data archives of large astronomical facili- ties are a treasure for atmospheric studies. For our project, we used archival data of the medium-resolution X-shooter echelle spectrograph operated by the European Southern Ob- servatory at Cerro Paranal in Chile. The instrument can si- multaneously observe all OH bands that are accessible from ground. We reduced and analysed a set of 343 high-quality spectra taken between 2009 and 2013 to measure OH line in- tensities and to derive rotational and vibrational temperatures of 25 bands between 0.58 and 2.24 µm. We studied the influ- ence of the selected line set, OH band, upper vibrational level v 0 , and the molecular data on the derived level populations and temperatures. The rotational temperature results indicate differences by several degrees depending on the selection. The temperatures for bands of even and odd v 0 show devia- tions which increase with v 0 . A study of the temporal varia- tions revealed that the nocturnal variability pattern changes for v 0 from 2 to 9. In particular, the spread of temperatures tends to increase during the night, and the time of the min- imum temperature depends on v 0 . The vibrational tempera- tures depend on the range ofv 0 used for their determination, since the higher vibrational levels from 7 to 9 seem to be overpopulated compared to the lower levels. The vibrational temperature tends to increase during the night, while the in- tensity decreases. Our results support the assumption that the OH emission altitude depends onv 0 . Moreover, the emission layer appears to rise in the course of the night, which makes the OH thermalisation less efficient. The derived rotational temperatures and their change with v 0 seem to be signifi-