Extragalactic background light : a measurement at 400 nm using dark cloud shadow(*dagger)-I. Low surface brightness spectrophotometry in the area of Lynds 1642

We present the method and observations for the measurement of the Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) utilizing the shadowing effect of a dark cloud. We measure the surface brightness difference between the opaque cloud core and its unobscured surroundings. In the difference the large atmospheric and Zodiacal light components are eliminated and the only remaining foreground component is the scattered starlight from the cloud itself. Although much smaller, its separation is the key problem in the method. For its separation we use spectroscopy. While the scattered starlight has the characteristic Fraunhofer lines and 400 nm discontinuity, the EBL spectrum is smooth and without these features. Medium resolution spectrophotometry at lambda = 380-580 nm was performed with VLT/FORS at ESO of the surface brightness in and around the high-galactic-latitude dark cloud Lynds 1642. Besides the spectrum for the core with AV greater than or similar to 15 mag, further spectra were obtained for intermediate-opacity cloud positions. They are used as proxy for the spectrum of the impinging starlight spectrum and to facilitate the separation of the scattered starlight (cf. Paper II; Mattila et al.). Our spectra reach a precision of less than or similar to 0.5 x 10(-9) erg cm(-2) s(-1) sr(-1) angstrom(-1) as required to measure an EBL intensity in range of similar to 1 to a few times 10(-9) erg cm(-2) s(-1) sr(-1) angstrom(-1). Because all surface brightness components are measured using the same equipment, the method does not require unusually high absolute calibration accuracy, a condition that has been a problem for some previous EBL projects.Peer reviewe