Open AccessModelling artificial night‐sky brightness with a polarized multiple scattering radiative transfer computer code
Author(s) -
Xavier Kerola Dana
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09821.x
Subject(s) - radiative transfer , physics , chandrasekhar limit , brightness , sky brightness , sky , scattering , atmospheric radiative transfer codes , extinction (optical mineralogy) , astrophysics , computational physics , remote sensing , optics , stars , white dwarf , geology
As part of an ongoing investigation of radiative effects produced by hazy atmospheres, computational procedures have been developed for use in determining the brightening of the night sky as a result of urban illumination. The downwardly and upwardly directed radiances of multiply scattered light from an offending metropolitan source are computed by a straightforward Gauss–Seidel (G–S) iterative technique applied directly to the integrated form of Chandrasekhar's vectorized radiative transfer equation. Initial benchmark night‐sky brightness tests of the present G–S model using fully consistent optical emission and extinction input parameters yield very encouraging results when compared with the double scattering treatment of Garstang, the only full‐fledged previously available model.