Light pollution and night sky brightness at the site of Kottamia Observatory

Nawar, S.; Morcos, A. B.

doi:10.1007/bf00619457

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Such a distortion is due to spectrally dependent atmospheric extinction and light pollution. In spite of this evidence, the studies on spectral behaviour of night sky scarcely occur in the literature (Nawar, Morcos & Mikhail 1995; Barducci et al 2003; Pedani 2004), and, if any, these focus on the total radiative fluxes rather than the radiance patterns. Then it is quite difficult to eliminate a contribution of skylight from the directional optical signal if measured toward a reference star.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the spectral behaviour of night skylight close to artificial light sources

Kocifaj¹

2010

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Spectral features of the night sky are simulated under cloudless conditions. Numerical runs show that spectral composition of the diffuse light changes over the whole sky and sky radiances quickly respond to altering aerosol characteristics, such as the asymmetry parameter, single scattering albedo and total optical thickness. The general trend is a steep decrease of diffuse irradiance with a distance from the city centre. Powerstar HQI-NDL lamps produce more light at short wavelengths, thus implying the higher levels of light pollution. The red light may markedly contribute to the obtrusive light if Vialox NAV-4Y lamps are considered as a prevailing source of light in the model town. In a non-turbid atmosphere, the minimum radiance is notoriously observed close to the zenith. As aerosol loading increases, the minimum radiance is shifted to larger zenith angles at the opposite side of the light source. Obtained results may serve as corrections to spectrophotometry data, as the light pollution can be easily calculated for any sky element and for any spectral band.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the spectral behaviour of night skylight close to artificial light sources

Kocifaj¹

2010

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…Since the 1990s, new cities have been constructed near the observatory site until recently in 2016, the New Administrative Capital city was set to be constructed only about 13 km away west the observatory. Only few observations have been carried out at Kottamia observatory using a semi-automatic photoelectric photometer 1,21,22 . The observations were carried out in either two (BV) or three lters (BVR).…”

Section: Methods and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The use of a camera with lters was done by Rudnick 28 which he has used to measure the night sky brightness in two lters (blue and red) at different zenithal distances. Electric photometers were also used with different lters 7,27,12,19,25,32,26,21,16,20,14,4 . In the beginning of the 2000s, the use of the CCD cameras became wider in which they could be equipped with lenses or telescopes 29,6,10 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

UBVRI night sky brightness at Kottamia Astronomical Observatory

Aboushelib

Morcos

Nawar

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Using a customized fully automatic photoelectric photometer, we measured the NSB in UBVRI filters at Kottamia Astronomical Observatory. The observations covered all the sky at all altitudes and azimuths with 10° steps at each. The observations were carried out on three nights of August, 1st, 2nd and 3rd 2022 and were averaged. The average zenith sky brightness is 20.49, 20.7, 19.34, 18.25 and 17.04 mag/arcsec2 in UBVRI filters respectively. The average color index is U-B = - 0.21, B-V = 1.37, V-R = 1.09 and R-I = 1.21 for the zenith. The average atmospheric extinction and sky transparency of the UBVRI filters were determined for the three nights of observations. We also included the atmospheric conditions during the observational nights.

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“…The increase of light pollution over the last three decades from Greater Cairo had bad impacts on the operation of Kottamia observatory, as observed by Asaad and Morcos (1982) and Nawar et al (1995). Also, the nearby megaproject of New Administrative Capital will end the excellence of the largest telescope in the North Africa and Middle East.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric conditions affecting seeing at St. Catherine: Estimation of operational time for NRIAG new telescope

Mekhaimr

2017

NRIAG Journal of Astronomy and Geophysics

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The study of the prevailing atmospheric conditions is an essential part of any site testing for a new telescope establishment. In this article, the meteorological parameters that affect the astronomical seeing at St. Catherine region, where a two candidate sites are located, are studied based on the available climate data. The complex topographical features of the region cause some differences between the weather at the nearest meteorological station and that at the candidate sites. This issue is illustrated through high resolution atmospheric modeling for short period (six days) as a case study. Finally, a preliminary estimation of operational hours for the telescope at the candidate sites is calculated.

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Light pollution and night sky brightness at the site of Kottamia Observatory

Cited by 7 publications

References 6 publications

Modelling the spectral behaviour of night skylight close to artificial light sources

Modelling the spectral behaviour of night skylight close to artificial light sources

UBVRI night sky brightness at Kottamia Astronomical Observatory

Atmospheric conditions affecting seeing at St. Catherine: Estimation of operational time for NRIAG new telescope

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