Airglow monitoring by one-pixel detector

The night time airglow is a dynamic phenomenon that acts as a background for the detection of the extensive air shower (EAS) fluorescence. It is a mandatory task to monitor this background for the ground-based telescopes and for the planned space-based telescopes, dedicated to observe the EAS events induced by the ultra-high energy cosmic rays. To perform this task, we have developed a one-pixel Airglow MONitor (AMON) instrument. This instrument provides the absolute intensities of the measured night sky background in the near-ultraviolet spectral range and in the one second temporal resolution. It is designed to be easily operated in different locations and so to offer required spatial resolution. The first results demonstrate that AMON data might be useful not only for the high-energy astrophysics purposes, but also for the studies of the airglow dynamics.