Maunakea Night-Sky Model

Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE) is the first of the future generation of massively multiplexed spectroscopic 11.25m mirror facility on a recycled site. MSE is designed to enable transformative science, being completely dedicated to large-scale multi-object spectroscopic surveys, each studying thousands to millions of astrophysical objects. MSE’s transformational potential lies in answering numerous scientific questions and finding new puzzles. Its success will depend in part on its ability to detect large populations of faint sources, from those responsible for reionization to merging galaxies at cosmic dawn and the stellar populations of nearby dwarf galaxies. This capability is set, in part, by our ability to remove the sky from the target spectra. Here we describe the initial steps in a threeyear long effort to develop a model of the Maunakea skies comparable to the model developed by ESO of the southern ESO sites. The model will be used to derive best-practices (e.g. the number of required fibers given specific observing conditions, and required sensitivity) and sky subtraction algorithms to achieve << 1% sky subtraction accuracy