Related papers: Moonlit sky polarization patterns from Cerro Paran…
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,…
Polarimetric observations of the twilight sky are effective for the investigations of scattering properties of the atmosphere at different altitudes. Modern computer technique allows to reduce the influence of multiple scattering on the…
The largest natural source of light at night is the Moon, and it is the major contributor to the astronomical sky background. Being able to accurately predict the sky background, including scattered moonlight is important for scheduling…
Ground-based observations of the Earthshine, i.e., the light scattered by Earth to the Moon, and then reflected back to Earth, simulate space observations of our planet and represent a powerful benchmark for the studies of Earth-like…
This work is devoted to the study of solar light that experiences single and multiple scattering in the atmosphere at the twilight time. The work is based on polarimetric observations of the twilight sky that were conducted in 1997 and 2000…
Evolved late-type stars are frequently identified as photometric and spectroscopic variables, such as Mira-type or semi-regular variable objects. These stars can also be polarimetrically variable, an indicator of non-spherical geometry for…
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…
Polarized scattering in planetary atmospheres is computed in the context of exoplanets. The problem of polarized radiative transfer is solved for a general case of absorption and scattering, while Rayleigh and Mie polarized scattering are…
The dynamic atmosphere imposes challenges to ground-based cosmic microwave background observation, especially for measurements on large angular scales. The hydrometeors in the atmosphere, mostly in the form of clouds, scatter the ambient…
We investigate the intensity and polarization of reflected light from planetary atmospheres. We present a large grid of Monte Carlo simulations for planets with Rayleigh scattering atmospheres. We discuss the disk-integrated polarization…
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…
The simplest version of the method of detection of single molecular scattering basing on the polarization measurements of the twilight sky background by all-sky cameras is considered. The method can be used during the transitive twilight…
The direction angle of twilight sky background polarization in the celestial sphere points far from solar vertical is found to depend on the ratio of single and multiple scattering contributions. The polarization direction behavior during…
The paper contains the review of a number of wide-angle polarization CCD-measurements of the twilight sky in V and R color bands with effective wavelengths equal to 550 and 700 nm. The basic factors effecting (usually decreasing) on the…
The polarization state of electromagnetic radiation scattered by atmospheric particles such as aerosols, cloud droplets, or ice crystals contains much more information about the optical and microphysical properties than the total intensity…
The light received by source stars in microlensing events may be significantly polarized if both an efficient photon scattering mechanism is active in the source stellar atmosphere and a differential magnification is therein induced by the…
Earthshine observations offer a unique opportunity to study Earth as an exoplanet seen from the Moon. As the Sun-Earth-Moon geometry changes, Earth can be observed as a spatially unresolved exoplanet at different phase angles, providing…
The polarization state of starlight reflected by a planetary atmosphere uniquely reveals coverage, particle size, and composition of aerosols as well as changing cloud patterns. It is not possible to obtain a comparable level of detailed…
We report new high-precision observations of the polarization of light scattered from the atmosphere of Venus, made 100 years after the pioneering studies by Bernard Lyot. The new observations include disk-integrated observations in a range…
We re-consider the polarization of the star light that may arise during microlensing events due to the high gradient of magnification across the atmosphere of the source star, by exploring the full range of microlensing and stellar physical…