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Night sky brightness measurement, quality assessment and monitoring

Nature Astronomy volume 6, pages 1120–1132 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Ground-based optical astronomy necessarily involves sensing the light of astronomical objects along with the contributions of many natural sources ranging from the Earth’s atmosphere to cosmological light. In addition, astronomers have long contended with artificial light pollution, which further adds to the ‘background’ against which astronomical objects are seen. Understanding the brightness of the night sky is therefore fundamental to astronomy. The last comprehensive review of this subject was nearly a half-century ago, and we have learned much about both the natural and artificial night sky since. This Review considers which influences determine the total optical brightness of the night sky, the means by which this brightness is measured and how night sky quality is assessed and monitored in the long term.

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Fig. 1: Natural light in the sky from day to night.
Fig. 2: Night airglow phenomena seen from Earth orbit.
Fig. 3: The colour and brightness of the light-polluted night sky.
Fig. 4: Typical broadband digital imaging passbands and night sky spectra.
Fig. 5: NSB histogram made by integrating a time series of measurements obtained over one year at Páramos, Spain.
Fig. 6: A comparison of subjective and objective night sky quality metrics.

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Acknowledgements

Many individuals contributed positively to the content and clarity of this manuscript with their informal reviews and comments. In particular, we wish to thank S. Bará (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain), G. Esquerdo (Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory, USA), L.-W. Hung (US NPS Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division, USA), Z. Kolláth (Konkoly Observatory, Hungary) and K. Walczak (Adler Planetarium, USA) for their helpful feedback.

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  1. Dark Sky Consulting, LLC, Tucson, AZ, USA

    John C. Barentine

  2. Consortium for Dark Sky Studies, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    John C. Barentine

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  1. John C. Barentine
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Correspondence to John C. Barentine.

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The author declares the following competing interests. Financial competing interests: the author is self-employed as a consultant in the field that is the subject of this Review. Non-financial competing interests: the author is an unpaid member of committees of the American Astronomical Society and International Astronomical Union that advocate or lobby for interests that are the subject of this Review.

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Barentine, J.C. Night sky brightness measurement, quality assessment and monitoring. Nat Astron 6, 1120–1132 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01756-2

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