Night-sky brightness and extinction at Mt Shatdzhatmaz

The photometric sky quality of Mt Shatdzhatmaz, the site of the 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 by-product of atmospheric optical turbulence me...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2016-11, Vol.462 (4), p.4464-4472
Main Authors: Kornilov, V., Kornilov, M., Voziakova, O., Shatsky, N., Safonov, B., Gorbunov, I., Potanin, S., Cheryasov, D., Senik, V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospherics
Brightness
Byproducts
Extinction
Light
Measurement techniques
Observatories
Optical measuring instruments
Photometry
Space telescopes
Spectral bands
Statistics
Turbulence
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Request full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The photometric sky quality of Mt Shatdzhatmaz, the site of the 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 by-product of atmospheric optical turbulence measurements with the MASS (Multi-Aperture Scintillation Sensor) device conducted in 2007–2013. The factors biasing night-sky brightness measurements are considered and a technique to reduce their impact on the statistics is proposed. The single-band photometric estimations provided by MASS are easy to transform to the standard photometric bands. The median moonless night-sky brightness is 22.1, 21.1, 20.3 and 19.0 mag arcsec−2 for the B, V, R and I spectral bands, respectively. The median extinction coefficients for the same photometric bands are 0.28, 0.17, 0.13 and 0.09 mag. The best atmospheric transparency is observed in winter.
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966
DOI:10.1093/mnras/stw1839