Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 446, Issue 3, Pages 2895-2901Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stu2265
Keywords
scattering; atmospheric effects; light pollution; methods: numerical
Categories
Funding
- SAIA
- Slovak Research and Development Agency [APVV-0177-10]
- Slovak National Grant Agency VEGA [2/0002/12]
- National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico under project Catedras CONACYT [2723 TP]
- EU-COST [ES 1204]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The effects of artificial light at night are an emergent research topic for astronomers, physicists, engineers and biologists around the world. This leads to a need for measurements of the night sky brightness (= diffuse luminance of the night sky) and nocturnal illuminance. Currently, the most sensitive light meters measure the zenith sky brightness in magV/arcsec(2) or -less frequently -in cd m(-2). However, the horizontal illuminance resulting only from the night sky is an important source of information that is difficult to obtain with common instruments. Here we present a set of approximations to convert the zenith luminance into horizontal illuminance. Three different approximations are presented for three idealized atmospheric conditions: homogeneous sky brightness, an isotropically scattering atmosphere and a turbid atmosphere. We also apply the resulting conversion formulae to experimental data on night sky luminance, obtained during the past three years.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available