Effects of surface reflectance on skylight polarization measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory

Andrew R Dahlberg; Nathan J Pust; Joseph A Shaw

doi:10.1364/OE.19.016008

Effects of surface reflectance on skylight polarization measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory

Opt Express. 2011 Aug 15;19(17):16008-21. doi: 10.1364/OE.19.016008.

Authors

Andrew R Dahlberg¹, Nathan J Pust, Joseph A Shaw

Affiliation

¹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Montana State University, 610 Cobleigh Hall, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA.

PMID: 21934965
DOI: 10.1364/OE.19.016008

Abstract

An all-sky imaging polarimeter was deployed in summer 2008 to the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii to study clear-sky atmospheric skylight polarization. The imager operates in five wavebands in the visible and near infrared spectrum and has a fisheye lens for all-sky viewing. This paper describes the deployment and presents comparisons of the degree of skylight polarization observed to similar data observed by Coulson with a principal-plane scanning polarimeter in the late 1970s. In general, the results compared favorably to those of Coulson. In addition, we present quantitative results correlating a variation of the maximum degree of polarization over a range of 70-85% to fluctuation in underlying surface reflectance and upwelling radiance data from the GOES satellite.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.