Related papers: Measuring night sky brightness: methods and challe…
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…
We describe a system for rapidly measuring the brightness of the night sky using a mosaic of CCD images obtained with a low-cost automated system. The portable system produces millions of independent photometric measurements covering the…
A crucial part of the qualification of international dark sky places (IDSPs) is the objective measurement of night time sky luminance or radiance. Modern digital cameras provide an alternative way to perform all sky imaging either by a…
The Sky Quality Meter (SQM) has become the most common device to track the evolution of the brightness of the sky from polluted regions to first class astronomical observatories. A vast database of SQM measurements already exists for many…
Night sky brightness is a major source of noise both for Cherenkov telescopes as well as for wide-angle Cherenkov detectors. Therefore, it is important to know the level of night sky brightness at potential sites for future experiments. The…
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 method to map the artificial sky brightness across large territories in astronomical photometric bands with a resolution of approximately 1 km. This is useful to quantify the situation of night sky pollution, to recognize…
A recurring question arises when trying to characterize, by means of measurements or theoretical calculations, the zenithal night sky brightness throughout a large territory: how many samples per square kilometer are needed? The optimum…
Contrary to some widespread intuitive belief, the night sky brightness perceived by the human eye or any other physical detector does not come (exclusively) from high in the sky. The detected brightness is built up from the scattered…
Variability in the sky has been known for centuries, even millennia, but our knowledge of it is very incomplete even at the bright end. Current technology makes it possible to built small, robotic optical instruments, to record images and…
The All Sky Camera (ASC) was developed as an universal device for a monitoring of the night sky quality and night sky background measurement. ASC system consists of an astronomical CCD camera, a fish eye lens, a control computer and…
This paper presents optical night sky brightness measurements from the stratosphere using CCD images taken with the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT). The data used for estimating the backgrounds were obtained during…
We present a study of the night sky brightness around the extended metropolitan area of Madrid using Sky Quality Meter (SQM) photometers. The map is the first to cover the spatial distribution of the sky brightness in the center of the…
We present a project to map the artificial sky brightness in Europe in the main astronomical photometrical bands with a resolution better than 3 km. The aim is to understand the state of night sky pollution in Europe, to quantify the…
Artificial skyglow is constantly growing on a global scale, with potential ecological consequences ranging up to affecting biodiversity. To understand these consequences, worldwide mapping of skyglow for all weather conditions is urgently…
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…
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…
Ongoing and future surveys with repeat imaging in multiple bands are producing (or will produce) time-spaced measurements of brightness, resulting in the identification of large numbers of variable sources in the sky. A large fraction of…
Artificial skyglow is a form of light pollution with wide ranging implications on the environment. The extent, intensity and color of skyglow depends on the artificial light sources and weather conditions. Skyglow can be best determined…
It is currently feasible to start a continuous digital record of the entire sky sensitive to any visual magnitude brighter than 15 each night. Such a record could be created with a modest array of small telescopes, which collectively…