A photometric mapping of the night sky brightness of the Maltese islands
| Autor: | Daniel Spiteri, Joseph Caruana, Ryan Vella, Michael Nolle, Noel J. Aquilina, Sara Fenech |
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| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Brightness
Environmental Engineering Skyglow media_common.quotation_subject 0208 environmental biotechnology Night sky Light pollution FOS: Physical sciences 02 engineering and technology 010501 environmental sciences Management Monitoring Policy and Law 01 natural sciences Humans Waste Management and Disposal Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) 0105 earth and related environmental sciences media_common Islands geography.geographical_feature_category Artificial light Ecology Atmosphere General Medicine language.human_language 020801 environmental engineering Maltese Physics - Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics Geography Sky Archipelago Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph) language Physical geography Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Environmental Pollution |
| DOI: | 10.48550/arxiv.2002.04435 |
| Popis: | Over the years, the Maltese Islands have seen a marked rise in the prevalence of artificial lighting at night. The most evident type of light pollution arising from this evolution in anthropogenic night-time lighting is artificial skyglow via partial back-scattering in the atmosphere, leading to an increase in the Night Sky Brightness (NSB). The importance of understanding and quantifying the geographical distribution of the NSB is underscored by the adverse impact of light pollution on various spheres, from astronomical observation to ecology and human health. For the first time, we present a detailed map of the NSB over the Maltese archipelago carried out with Unihedron Sky Quality Meters. We show that the vast majority of the area of the Maltese Islands is heavily light polluted, with 87% of the area registering a NSB $$ 20.4 - 21.29~mag$_{\rm SQM}$/arcsec$^2$; Bortle Class 4). Coastal Dark Sky Heritage Areas on the island of Gozo retain generally darker skies than the rest of the islands, but light pollution originating further inland is encroaching upon and adversely affecting these sites. The methodology presented in this study can be adopted for continued future studies in Malta as well as for other regions. Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, 11 supplementary figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Environmental Management |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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