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Bortle scale. The Bortle dark-sky scale (usually referred to as simply the Bortle scale) is a nine-level numeric scale that measures the night sky 's brightness of a particular location. It quantifies the astronomical observability of celestial objects and the interference caused by light pollution.
Haze is traditionally an atmospheric phenomenon in which dust, smoke, and other dry particulates suspended in air obscure visibility and the clarity of the sky. The World Meteorological Organization manual of codes includes a classification of particulates causing horizontal obscuration into categories of fog, ice fog, steam fog, mist, haze ...
The night sky is the nighttime appearance of celestial objects like stars, planets, and the Moon, which are visible in a clear sky between sunset and sunrise, when the Sun is below the horizon . Natural light sources in a night sky include moonlight, starlight, and airglow, depending on location and timing. Aurorae light up the skies above the ...
Light pollution is the presence of any unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial lighting. [1] [2] In a descriptive sense, the term light pollution refers to the effects of any poorly implemented lighting sources, during the day or night. Light pollution can be understood not only as a phenomenon resulting from a specific source or kind ...
Rayleigh scattering causes the blue color of the daytime sky and the reddening of the Sun at sunset. Rayleigh scattering (/ ˈ r eɪ l i / RAY-lee), named after the 19th-century British physicist Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt), [1] is the predominantly elastic scattering of light, or other electromagnetic radiation, by particles with a size much smaller than the wavelength of the radiation.
Atmospheric optics. A colorful sky is often due to indirect sunlight being scattered off air molecules and particulates, like smog, soot, and cloud droplets, as shown in this photo of a sunset during the October 2007 California wildfires. Atmospheric optics is "the study of the optical characteristics of the atmosphere or products of ...
You don’t need instruments such as a telescope or binoculars, but find the darkest sky you can without light pollution. If you can, lie flat on your back and look straight up, taking in as much ...
Sky brightness refers to the visual perception of the sky and how it scatters and diffuses light. The fact that the sky is not completely dark at night is easily visible. If light sources (e.g. the Moon and light pollution) were removed from the night sky, only direct starlight would be visible. The sky's brightness varies greatly over the day ...