Twilight and daytime colors of the clear sky

Digital image analysis of the cloudless sky's daytime and twilight chromaticities challenges some existing ideas about sky colors. First, although the observed colors of the clear daytime sky do lie near the blackbody locus, their meridional chromaticity curves may resemble it very little. Second, analyses of twilight colors show that their meridional chromaticity curves vary greatly, with some surprising consequences for their calorimetric gamuts.     

Colorimetric and spectroradiometric characteristics of narrow-field-of-view clear skylight in Granada, Spain

As part of our ongoing research into the clear daytime sky's visible structure, we analyze over 1,500 skylight spectra measured during a seven-month period in Granada, Spain. We use spectral radiances measured within 3 degrees fields of view (FOV's) to define colorimetric characteristics along four sky meridians: the solar meridian and three meridians at azimuths of 45 degrees, 90 degrees, and 315 degrees relative to it. The resulting clear-sky chromaticities in 44 different view directions (1) are close to but do not coincide with the CIE daylight locus, (2) form V-shaped meridional chromaticity curves along it (as expected from theory), and (3) have correlated color temperatures (CCT's) ranging from 3,800 K to infinity K. We also routinely observe that sky color and luminance are asymmetric about the solar meridian, usually perceptibly so. A principal-components analysis shows that three vectors are required for accurate clear-sky colorimetry, whereas six are needed for spectral analyses.     

Analysis of the improvement in sky coverage for multiconjugate adaptive optics systems obtained using minimum variance split tomography

The scientific utility of laser-guide-star-based multiconjugate adaptive optics systems depends upon high sky coverage. Previously we reported a high-fidelity sky coverage analysis of an ad hoc split tomography control algorithm and a postprocessing simulation technique. In this paper, we present the performance of a newer minimum variance split tomography algorithm, and we show that it brings a median improvement at zenith of 21 nm rms optical path difference error over the ad hoc split tomography control algorithm for our system, the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System for the Thirty Meter Telescope. In order to make the comparison, we also validated our previously developed sky coverage postprocessing software using an integrated simulation of both high- (laser guide star) and low-order (natural guide star) loops. A new term in the noise model is also identified that improves the performance of both algorithms by more properly regularizing the reconstructor.     

水平子午环微光探测系统

来自遥远天体的信号相当微弱,往往被夜天光所淹没,无法提取有用的信号,因此天文微光探测力求尽可能减少夜天光的影响,获得尽可能高的信噪比,活动光栅是减少夜天光影响的最佳方案,光子计数的应用可直接获得星光信号的数字量,为噪声的研究提供了可能,本文介绍的微光探测系统就是基于上述原则设计的,已成功地用于中国与丹麦合作研制的全自动水平子午环上,其系统精度为0.03角秒,另一方面应选取合适的数学模型,以期结果更接近于无偏估计,作者提出了一种相关处理方法,其特点是无需任何假定,因此这种归算更接近于无偏估计,特别适用于暗星观测的归算。     

Measuring and modeling twilight's purple light

During many clear twilights, much of the solar sky is dominated by pastel purples. This purple light's red component has long been ascribed to transmission through and scattering by stratospheric dust and other aerosols. Clearly the vivid purples of post-volcanic twilights are related to increased stratospheric aerosol loading. Yet our time-series measurements of purple-light spectra, combined with radiative transfer modeling and satellite soundings, indicate that background stratospheric aerosols by themselves do not redden sunlight enough to cause the purple light's reds. Furthermore, scattering and extinction in both the troposphere and the stratosphere are needed to explain most purple lights.     

Haze removal method based on a variation function and colour attenuation prior for UAV remote-sensing images

Aiming at the problem of low visibility of images obtained by UAV in hazy weather, this paper proposes an image dehazing algorithm based on variation function and colour attention prior. A large number of experiments have proved that the sky or other bright regions could affect the estimation of atmospheric light and transmittance. In the experiment, our proposed algorithm divides the images into sky and dark regions and uses the pixels of the dark region to solve the atmospheric light value. According to the region where the pixels are located, the transmittances of the pixels in the sky and non-sky regions are separately estimated and adjusted. The experiment’s results show that the restored image visibility, information entropy and colour saturation are significantly improved, and the algorithm’s computational efficiency is high.     

Automated ground-based star-pointing UV -visible spectrometer for stratospheric measurements

A novel automated ground-based star-pointing spectrometer system has been constructed for long-term deployment in Antarctica. Similar to our earlier stellar system, a two-dimensional detector array measures the spectra of the star and the adjacent sky, so that auroral emission from the sky can be subtracted from the stellar signal. Some new features are an altitude -azimuth pointing mirror, so that the spectrometer does not move; slip rings to provide its power thereby avoiding flexing of cables and restriction of all-around viewing; and a glazed enclosure around the mirror to ensure protection from rain and snow, made from flat plates to avoid changing the focal length of the telescope. The optical system can also view sunlight scattered from the zenith sky. The system automatically points and tracks selected stars and switches to other views on command. The system is now installed at Halley in Antarctica, and some preliminary measurements of ozone from Antarctica are shown.     

Influence of the environment reflectance on the ultraviolet zenith radiance for cloudless sky

A three-dimensional Monte Carlo code is used to compute the ultraviolet zenith sky radiance; the code is validated by comparison with a successive-orders-of-scattering code. The amplifications of global irradiance, diffuse irradiance, and zenith radiance that are due to multiple reflectances between a snow-covered ground surface and the atmosphere are compared. For an inhomogeneous Lambertian surface, the contribution of the site environment is analyzed; it depends slightly on the atmospheric turbidity and on the surface reflectance distribution. However, in most cases one can expect approximately 12-15% of the reflected photon contribution to come from within 1 km about the observation site, 25-30% come from areas from 1 to 5 km from the site, 43-47% from 5 to 30 km, and still 10-15% reflected at larger distances. An average contribution function is proposed and used to compute an effective reflectance, which permits retrieval of the sky radiance within 2-4% with a one-dimensional model.     

天顶亮度与太阳高度角关系的观测

天顶亮度是表征天空背景光的一个重要特性参数,为了获得天顶亮度变化特性,利用天空背景辐射测量系统对新疆某地区天顶亮度进行了观测,通过对实际测量数据进行分析,结果表明在天气晴朗时,天顶亮度与太阳高度角之间存在着一定的关系,给出了晴朗天气条件下天顶亮度随着太阳高度角变化的特征关系式,通过应用该关系式计算的结果与实测值的比较验证了该关系式的有效性。该特征关系式可用于晴朗天气时天顶亮度的实时监测,对天空背景光辐射亮度研究具有实际意义。     

Polarization patterns of thick clouds: overcast skies have distribution of the angle of polarization similar to that of clear skies

The distribution of polarization in the overcast sky has been practically unknown. Earlier the polarization of light from heavily overcast skies (when the Sun's disc was invisible) has been measured only sporadically in some celestial points by point-source polarimetry. What kind of patterns of the degree p and angle alpha of linear polarization of light could develop after transmission through a thick layer of ice or water clouds? To answer this question, we measured the p and alpha patterns of numerous totally overcast skies on the Arctic Ocean and in Hungary by full-sky imaging polarimetry. We present here our finding that depending on the optical thickness of the cloud layer, the pattern of alpha of light transmitted through the ice or water clouds of totally overcast skies is qualitatively the same as the alpha pattern of the clear sky. Under overcast conditions the value of alpha is determined predominantly by scattering on cloud particles themselves. Nevertheless, the degrees of linear polarization of light from overcast skies were rather low (p相似文献   

Development of an all-sky-scanning spectroradiometer with a visible diode array and a near-infrared acousto-optic tunable filter

A sky scanner was developed that collects spectral radiance data over the wavelength range 390-1732 nm by use of two radiometers, the first being a monochromator with a 512-element silicon diode array and the second being a near-infrared acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) coupled to an InGaAs detector. The scanner is capable of completing a set of spectral radiance measurements at 146 points in the sky hemisphere in a period of less than 4 min.     

Island perturbation to the sky radiance over the ocean: simulations

Sky-radiance measurements at the sea surface can be used to estimate radiative properties of aerosols over water. We demonstrate, through Monte Carlo simulations, that significant perturbations to sky radiance over the ocean can occur when measurements are carried out with radiometers located on islands. In particular, we present examples of the influence of the physical and optical thicknesses of an aerosol layer, the azimuth of observation relative to the Sun, the size of the island, the location of the radiometer on the island, and the albedo of the island on the magnitude of the perturbation for a circular island of uniform albedo. Relative errors in sky radiance of as high as 39% were found in the blue. Simulated (perturbed) sky radiances were combined with an algorithm for retrieving the aerosol phase function P(θ), where θ is the scattering angle, and with the single-scattering albedo ω(0), to demonstrate how the perturbation can influence the retrieved values. It was found that the fractional error in the retrieved values of the product ω(0)P(θ) can be significantly greater than the fractional error in the sky radiance, because of the effects of multiple scattering. This underscores the importance of removing the island perturbation before an inversion algorithm is used. A first-order procedure for removing the island perturbation based on the values of ω(0)P(θ) retrieved from the perturbed sky radiance is proposed and is found to be effective if the island perturbation is not too large. A simplified Monte Carlo procedure that is applicable to an island of arbitrary shape and albedo distribution is presented. The procedure could be used to assess the suitability of a given island as a measurement site, and to provide a first-order correction to actual experimental measurements.     

Ground-based full-sky imaging polarimetry of rapidly changing skies and its use for polarimetric cloud detection

For elimination of the shortcomings of imaging polarimeters that take the necessary three pictures sequentially through linear-polarization filters, a three-lens, three-camera, full-sky imaging polarimeter was designed that takes the required pictures simultaneously. With this polarimeter, celestial polarization patterns can be measured even if rapid temporal changes occur in the sky: under cloudy sky conditions, or immediately after sunrise or prior to sunset. One of the possible applications of our polarimeter is the ground-based detection of clouds. With use of the additional information of the degree and the angle of polarization patterns of cloudy skies measured in the red (650 nm), green (550 nm), and blue (450 nm) spectral ranges, improved algorithms of radiometric cloud detection can be offered. We present a combined radiometric and polarimetric algorithm that performs the detection of clouds more efficiently and reliably as compared with an exclusively radiometric cloud-detection algorithm. The advantages and the limits of three-lens, three-camera, full-sky imaging polarimeters as well as the possibilities of improving our polarimetric cloud detection method are discussed briefly.     

Polarization of 'water-skies' above arctic open waters: how polynyas in the ice-cover can be visually detected from a distance

The foggy sky above a white ice-cover and a dark water surface (permanent polynya or temporary lead) is white and dark gray, phenomena called the 'ice-sky' and the 'water-sky,' respectively. Captains of icebreaker ships used to search for not-directly-visible open waters remotely on the basis of the water sky. Animals depending on open waters in the Arctic region may also detect not-directly-visible waters from a distance by means of the water sky. Since the polarization of ice-skies and water-skies has not, to our knowledge, been studied before, we measured the polarization patterns of water-skies above polynyas in the arctic ice-cover during the Beringia 2005 Swedish polar research expedition to the North Pole region. We show that there are statistically significant differences in the angle of polarization between the water-sky and the ice-sky. This polarization phenomenon could help biological and man-made sensors to detect open waters not directly visible from a distance. However, the threshold of polarization-based detection would be rather low, because the degree of linear polarization of light radiated by water-skies and ice-skies is not higher than 10%.     

Spectral contrasts for landmark navigation

Visual robot navigation in outdoor environments would benefit from an illumination-independent representation of images. We explore how such a representation, comprising a black skyline of objects in front of a white sky, can be obtained from dual-channel spectral contrast measures. Light from sky and natural objects under different conditions of illumination was analyzed by five spectral channels: ultraviolet, blue, green, red, and near infrared. Linear discriminant analysis was applied to determine the optimal linear separation between sky and object points. A statistical comparison shows that contrasts with large differences in the wavelength of the two channels, specifically ultraviolet-infrared, blue-infrared, and ultraviolet-red, yield the best separation. Within a single channel, the best separation was obtained for ultraviolet light. The gain in separation quality when all five channels were included is relatively small.     

Sky coverage modeling for the whole sky for laser guide star multiconjugate adaptive optics

The scientific productivity of laser guide star adaptive optics systems strongly depends on the sky coverage, which describes the probability of finding natural guide stars for the tip/tilt wavefront sensor(s) to achieve a certain performance. Knowledge of the sky coverage is also important for astronomers planning their observations. In this paper, we present an efficient method to compute the sky coverage for the laser guide star multiconjugate adaptive optics system, the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS), being designed for the Thirty Meter Telescope project. We show that NFIRAOS can achieve more than 70% sky coverage over most of the accessible sky with the requirement of 191 nm total rms wavefront.     

Anomalous celestial polarization caused by forest fire smoke: why do some insects become visually disoriented under smoky skies?

The effects of forest fire smoke on sky polarization and animal orientation are practically unknown. Using full-sky imaging polarimetry, we therefore measured the celestial polarization pattern under a smoky sky in Fairbanks, Alaska, during the forest fire season in August 2005. It is quantitatively documented here that the celestial polarization, a sky attribute that is necessary for orientation of many polarization-sensitive animal species, above Fairbanks on 17 August 2005 was in several aspects anomalous due to the forest fire smoke: (i) The pattern of the degree of linear polarization p of the reddish smoky sky differed considerably from that of the corresponding clear blue sky. (ii) Due to the smoke, p of skylight was drastically reduced (p(max)相似文献   

Daytime operation of a pure rotational Raman lidar by use of a Fabry-Perot interferometer

We propose to use a Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) in a pure rotational Raman lidar to isolate return signals that are due to pure rotational Raman scattering from atmospheric nitrogen against the sky background. The main idea of this instrumental approach is that a FPI is applied as a frequency comb filter with the transmission peaks accurately matched to a comb of practically equidistant lines of a pure rotational Raman spectrum (PRRS) of nitrogen molecules. Thus a matched FPI transmission comb cuts out the spectrally continuous sky background light from the spectral gaps between the PRRS lines of nitrogen molecules while it is transparent to light within narrow spectral intervals about these lines. As the width of the spectral gaps between the lines of the PRRS of nitrogen molecules is -114 times the width of an individual spectral line, cutting out of the sky background from these gaps drastically improves the signal-to-background ratio of the pure rotational Raman lidar returns. This application of the FPI enables one to achieve daytime temperature profiling in the atmosphere with a pure rotational Raman lidar in the visible and near-UV spectral regions. We present an analysis of application of the FPI to filtering out the pure rotational Raman lidar returns against the solar background. To demonstrate the feasibility of the approach proposed, we present temperature profiles acquired during a whole-day measurement session in which a Raman lidar equipped with a FPI was used. For comparison, temperature profiles acquired with Vaisala radiosondes launched from the measurement site are also presented.     

Design of safety-critical systems using the complementarities of success and failure domains with a case study

A safety-critical system has to qualify the performance-related requirements and the safety-related requirements simultaneously. Conceptually, design processes should consider both of them simultaneously but the practices do not and/or cannot follow such a theoretical approach due to the limitation of design resources. From our experience, we found that safety-related functions must be simultaneously resolved with the development of performance-related functions, particularly, in case of safety-critical systems. Since, success and failure domain analyses are essential for the investigation of performance-related and safety-related requirements, respectively, we articulated our perception to Axiomatic Design (AD), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), and TRIZ. A design evolution procedure considering feedbacks from AD to identify functional couplings, TRIZ methodology to explore uncoupling solutions and FTA to improve reliability in a systematic way is presented here. A case study regarding design of safety injection tank installed in a nuclear power plant is also included to illustrate the proposed framework. It is expected that several iterations between AD-TRIZ-FTA would result into an optimized design which could be tested against the desired performance and safety criteria.     

Thirty years of observing and documenting sky optical phenomena

A homogeneous series of systematic observations of sky optical phenomena in the Netherlands has been gathered by the Dutch Observing Network since 1965. This continues the Dutch observation series that started at the end of the nineteenth century. A time series of ice-crystal halo frequencies from 1920 to 1996 and frequency diagrams of some specific halos the period from 1970 to 1996 are shown and discussed. Systematic observation recording by means of diaries and exchanging routines among observers are described. Methods are given for establishing and maintaining a network of volunteers that can provide, in a homogeneous time series, sky optical phenomena recordings.