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Sky conditions in the remote, dry north-western interior of South Africa are now the subject of considerable interest in view of the imminent construction of numerous solar power plants in this area. Furthermore, the part of this region in which the core of the SKA is to be located (which includes SALT) has been declared an Astronomical Advantage Zone, for which sky brightness monitoring will now be mandatory. In this project we seek to characterise the sky brightness profile under a variety of atmospheric conditions. Key factors are of course the lunar phase and altitude, but in addition the sky brightness is also significantly affected by the atmospheric aerosol loading, as that influences light beam scattering. In this paper we chose to investigate the sky characteristics soon after the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption in 1991, which resulted in huge ash masses reaching the stratosphere (where they affected solar irradiance for several years). We re-reduced photometric sky measurements from the South African Astronomical Observatory archives (and originally obtained by us) in different wavelengths and in a variety of directions. We use this data explore relationships between the aerosol loading and the sky brightness in a range of conditions, including several post-Pinatubo phases and during the passage of biomass burning induced haze and dust clouds. We use this data to explore the impact of our findings on the applicability of light scattering models and light scatterer properties.
In 2018, Solar Cycle 24 entered into a solar minimum phase. During this period, 11 million zenithal night sky brightness (NSB) data were collected at different dark sites around the planet, including astronomical observatories and natural protected a
The photometric sky quality of Mt. Shatdzhatmaz, the site of Sternberg Astronomical Institute Caucasian Observatory 2.5 m telescope, is characterized here by the statistics of the night-time sky brightness and extinction. The data were obtained as a
We present optical UBVRI zenith night sky brightness measurements collected on eighteen nights during 2013--2016 and SQM measurements obtained daily over twenty months during 2014--2016 at the Observatorio Astronomico Nacional on the Sierra San Pedro
This paper presents optical night sky brightness measurements from the stratosphere using CCD images taken with the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT). The data used for estimating the backgrounds were obtained during three com
The main features of SG-WAS (SkyGlow Wireless Autonomous Sensor), a low-cost device for measuring Night Sky Brightness (NSB), are presented. SG-WAS is based on the TSL237 sensor --like the Unihedron Sky Quality Meter (SQM) or the STARS4ALL Telescope