This paper deals with the diagnostics of a dc laminar argon plasma jet operating at atmospheric pressure in ambient air using three techniques. Through the pumping effect of ambient air by the laminar jet, it is possible to observe the UV OH spectrum at 306.357 nm (transition A 2Σ, ν = 0 → X 2Π, ν' = 0) and to perform emission spectroscopy in order to find the OH rotational temperature close to the thermodynamic temperature of the gas. In addition, measurements of the refractive index are made by considering two different methods: optical interferometry and quantitative shadowgraphy. It is shown that the temperatures obtained by the three diagnostics techniques are very close.