An Advanced Scattered Moonlight Model
Abstract
Correcting and predicting the flux coming from the background sky is a crucial aspect of observational astronomy. We have developed a sky background model for this purpose, and it is the most complete and universal sky model that we know of to date. The largest natural source of light at night in the optical is the Moon, and it is a major contributor to the astronomical sky background. An improved spectroscopic scattered moonlight model, which is applicable from 0.3 to 2.5 μm has been developed and studied with a set of FORS1 spectra and a dedicated X-shooter dataset. To our knowledge, this is the first spectroscopic model extending into the infrared and it has been tested for many lunar phases and geometries of the Moon and target observations.
- Publication:
-
The Messenger
- Pub Date:
- June 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014Msngr.156...31J