Introducing the dark sky unit for multi-spectral measurement of the night sky quality with commercial digital cameras

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jqsrt.2020.107162
• Publication Date: 2020-06-11T16:58:17Z
• Authors: Zoltán Kolláth; Andrew Cool; Andreas Jechow; Kornél Kolláth; Dénes Száz; Kai Pong Tong
• Keywords: Sky brightness; Spectral bands; Light Pollution

Multi-spectral imaging radiometry of the night sky provides essential information on light pollution (skyglow) and quality. However, due to different spectral sensitivity devices used for measurement, comparison surveys is not always trivial. In addition differences between measurement approaches, there a strong variation in natural radiance changes airglow. Thus, especially at dark locations, classical methods (such as Sky Quality Meters) fail provide consistent results. this paper, we show how make better use multi-spectral capabilities commercial digital cameras their application airglow analysis. We further recommend novel quality metric "Dark Unit", based an easily usable SI traceable unit. This unit choice consistent, camera-based measurements. also present our camera system calibration methodology with introduced metrics.