Photo-counting detector for ionosphere far ultraviolet night airglow remote sensing

Far ultraviolet earth night airglow is related to total electron content(TEC) of Ionosphere. Observing the night airglow nadir at OI 135.6nm emission produced by ionospheric O+ and e recombination can get the distribution of ionosphere TEC. In this paper, a compact of ionospheric FUV photometer developed for micro satellite will be introduced. The instrument works in photo-counting mode to achieve high sensitivity for weak night airglow radiation detection. The design of this photo-counting detector will be described in detail.