Comet Halley O(1D) and H2O production rates

Ground-based dual-etalon Fabry-Perot spectrometer observations have been made of Comet Halley's forbidden O I 6300 A emission. The 0.2 A resolution of the spectral scans was sufficient to resolve the O I forbidden line emissions from both nearby cometary NH2 and telluric emissions. On the basis of these measurements, the production rate Q of O(1D) was determined; it is then found, by taking into account the photodissociation of H2O and OH as sources of O(1D), that the ratio of H2O/O(1D) production rates is of the order of 6.