W. Jody Mandeville (The MITRE Corporation), Norman Facas (The MITRE Corporation), Tim McLaughlin (The MITRE Corporation), Steve Six (The MITRE Corporation), Alan Garner (AFLCMC/HBQS)
Keywords: SSA
Abstract:
Brightness of the sky background due to lunar phase and location can dramatically affect the limiting magnitude of astronomical detectors. Formerly, theoretical models have attained limited data sets with 10-20% differences between model and observation. This paper compares and contrasts previous investigations with over a million data points collected from various GEODSS sites located around the world and attempts to refine predictive modeling of sky brightness for use in scheduling as well as modeling and simulation tools.
Date of Conference: September 11-14, 2012
Track: Poster