The night sky brightness at Potsdam-Babelsberg including overcast and moonlit conditions

Author(s)

Johannes Puschnig, Axel Schwope, Thomas Posch, Robert Schwarz

Abstract

We analyze the results of 2 years (2011-2012) of night sky photometry performed at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam-Babelsberg. This institute is located 23km to the southwest of the center of Berlin. Our measurements have been performed with a Sky Quality Meter. We find night sky brightness values ranging from 16.5 to 20.3mag

_SQMarcsec

^-2; the latter value corresponds to 4.8 times the natural zenithal night sky brightness. We focus on the influence of clouds and of the moon on the night sky brightness. It turns out that Potsdam-Babelsberg, despite its proximity to Berlin, still shows a significant correlation of the night sky brightness with the lunar phases. However, the light-pollution-enhancing effect of clouds dominates the night sky brightness by far: overcast nights (up to 16.5mag

_SQMarcsec

^-2) are much brighter than clear full moon nights (18-18.5mag

_SQMarcsec

^-2).

Organisation(s)

Department of Astrophysics

External organisation(s)

Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Stockholm University

Journal

Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer

Volume

139

Pages

76-81

No. of pages

6

ISSN

0022-4073

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jqsrt.2013.12.011

Publication date

05-2014

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

103004 Astrophysics

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Radiation, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Spectroscopy

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/5f26ba55-5b88-4a57-82b6-cfb61126811e