Related papers: South African night sky brightness during high aer…
This paper presents multi-filter measurements of the night sky brightness at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Sutherland in the presence of a bright moon. The observations cover a wide range of sky directions, lunar…
Over the years, the Maltese Islands have seen a marked rise in the prevalence of artificial lighting at night. The most evident type of light pollution arising from this evolution in anthropogenic night-time lighting is artificial skyglow…
The method of detection of light scattering on stratospheric aerosol particles on the twilight sky background is considered. It is based on the data on sky intensity and polarization in the solar vertical at zenith distances of up to 50 deg…
Aerosol opacity has emerged as a critical factor controlling transmission and emission spectra. We provide a simple guideline for the effects of aerosol morphology on opacity and residence time in the atmosphere, as it pertains to transit…
We present a Monte Carlo simulation for the scattering of light in the case of an isotropic light source. The scattering phase functions are studied particularly in detail to understand how they can affect the multiple light scattering in…
We apply the sky brightness modelling technique introduced and developed by Roy Garstang to high-resolution DMSP-OLS satellite measurements of upward artificial light flux and to GTOPO30 digital elevation data in order to predict the…
We present a Monte Carlo simulation for the scattering of light in the case of an isotropic light source. The scattering phase functions are studied particularly in detail to understand how they can affect the multiple light scattering in…
The government of South Africa has identified astronomy as a field in which their country has a strategic advantage and is consequently investing very significantly in astronomical infrastructure. South Africa now operates a 10-m class…
We describe the problems met using the telescopes of Merate Observatory, the branch of Brera Astronomical Observatory. From the point of view of the data analysis, we discuss how to introduce a satisfactory correction of the variable…
The Earth's atmosphere affects ground-based astronomical observations. Scattering, absorption, and radiation processes deteriorate the signal-to-noise ratio of the data received. For scheduling astronomical observations it is, therefore,…
Atmospheric turbidity is one of the key factors influencing the propagation of artificial light into the environment during cloudless nights. High aerosol loading can reduce the visibility of astronomical objects, and thus information on…
The June 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption resulted in a massive increase of sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere, absorbing radiation and leading to global changes in surface and stratospheric temperatures. A volcanic eruption of this magnitude…
Light pollution is an increasing environmental concern, impacting both ecological systems and human health. This report presents an analysis of light pollution data from the washetdonker.nl SQM network from 2020 until 2023, with a focus on…
Surface solar irradiance varies on scales as small as seconds or meters due to scattering and absorption by the atmosphere. Clouds are the main driver of this variability, but moisture structures in the atmospheric boundary layer and…
Several light pollution indicators are commonly used to monitor the effects of the transition from outdoor lighting systems based on traditional gas-discharge lamps to solid-state light sources. In this work we analyze a subset of these…
Estimating the sky background is critical for ground-based astronomical research. In the optical, scattered moonlight dominates the sky background, when the moon is above the horizon. The most uncertain component of a scattered moonlight…
Ground-based optical astronomy necessarily involves sensing the light of astronomical objects along with the contributions of many natural sources ranging from the Earth's atmosphere to cosmological light. In addition, astronomers have long…
The visual perception of the natural night sky in many places of the world is strongly disturbed by anthropogenic light. Part of this artificial light is scattered in the atmosphere and propagates towards the observer, adding to the natural…
Magnetic features on the surfaces of cool stars cause variations of their brightness. Such variations have been extensively studied for the Sun. Recent planet-hunting space telescopes allowed measuring brightness variations in hundred…
Nighttime monitoring of the aerosol content of the lower atmosphere is a challenging task, because appropriate reference natural light sources are lacking. Here we show that the anthropogenic night sky brightness due to city lights can be…