Interactive comment on “ OH level populations and accuracies of Einstein-A coefficients from hundreds of measured lines

Abstract

This is a very well written manuscript based on a detailed analysis of one very highquality mean spectrum derived from more than 530 individual high-quality spectra obtained during 536 hours of observations with the high-resolution Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) at the telescope with a primary mirror of 8 m diameter located at Cerro Paranal in Chile. The primary target of the study is the emissions emanating from OH radicals located in a narrow layer near the Earth’s mesopause. The motivation for such a study is clearly explained in the Introduction which provides a comprehensive description of the historic use of these spectra in remote sensing of the mesopause temperature and the retrieval of atomic oxygen abundances. The criteria applied in the selection of the individual spectra used to generate the very