Wide-field compensation of monochromatic eye aberrations: expected performance and design trade-offs

Contiene: fórmulas y 6 ilustraciones.The optical quality of the human eye varies across the visual field. Hence an exact compensation of the eye aberration for a given field point can give rise to a less-than-optimum compensation in neighboring field regions. We have studied some aspects of this problem and present here an approach to design wide-field (,10°) optically thin correcting elements, e.g., phase plates, deformable mirrors, and liquid-crystal displays. Their expected performance is assessed using actual eye aberration data. Particular attention is given to the design of elements providing a minimum averaged rms residual aberration and those providing a nearly uniform rms residual aberration across a given field.Work supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica, Desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológica (I 1 D 1 I), DPI2002-04370-C02. - This paper was published in Journal of the Optical Society of America A, and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=josaa-20-1-1. Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law.Peer reviewe

Anthropogenic disruption of the night sky darkness in urban and rural areas

The growing emissions of artificial light to the atmosphere are producing, among other effects, a significant increase of the night sky brightness (NSB) above its expected natural values. A permanent sensor network has been deployed in Galicia (northwest of Iberian peninsula) to monitor the anthropogenic disruption of the night sky darkness in a countrywide area. The network is composed of 14 detectors integrated in automated weather stations of MeteoGalicia, the Galician public meteorological agency. Zenithal NSB readings are taken every minute and the results are openly available in real time for researchers, interested stakeholders and the public at large through a dedicated website. The measurements allow one to assess the extent of the loss of the natural night in urban, periurban, transition and dark rural sites, as well as its daily and monthly time courses. Two metrics are introduced here to characterize the disruption of the night darkness across the year: the significant magnitude (m1/3) and the moonlight modulation factor (γ ). The significant magnitude shows that in clear and moonless nights the zenithal night sky in the analysed urban settings is typically 14–23 times brighter than expected from a nominal natural dark sky. This factor lies in the range 7–8 in periurban sites, 1.6–2.5 in transition regions and 0.8–1.6 in rural and mountain dark sky places. The presence of clouds in urban areas strongly enhances the amount of scattered light, easily reaching amplification factors in excess of 25, in comparison with the light scattered in the same places under clear sky conditions. The periodic NSB modulation due to the Moon, still clearly visible in transition and rural places, is barely notable at periurban locations and is practically lost at urban sitesThis work was partially funded by the Xunta de Galicia, Programa de Consolidación e Estruturación de Unidades de Investigación Competitivas, grant CN 2012/156, and was partly developed within the framework of the Spanish Network for Light Pollution Studies (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, AYA2015-71542-REDTS

Quantifying the visual impact of wind farm lights on the nocturnal landscape

Wind farm lights are a conspicuous feature in the nocturnal landscape. Their presence is a source of light pollution for residents and the environment, severely disrupting in some places the aesthetic, cultural, and scientific values of the pristine starry skies. In this work we present a simple model for quantifying the visual impact of individual wind turbine lights, based on the comparison of their brightnesses with the brightness of well-known night sky objects. The model includes atmospheric and visual variables, and for typical parameters it shows that medium-intensity turbine lights can be brighter than Venus up to ~4 km from the turbine, brighter than alpha CMa (the brightest star on the nighttime sky) until about ~10 km, and reach the standard stellar visibility limit for the unaided eye (m_v=+6.00) at ~38 km. These results suggest that the visual range of wind farms at nighttime may be significantly larger than at daytime, a factor that should be taken into account in environmental impact assessments.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Are SQM-L measurements polarization dependent?

Several observers informed that slightly different SQM-L zenithal brightness readings can be obtained depending on the azimuthal orientation of the device. Since the light scattered by the atmosphere generally has some degree of polarization, depending on the relative position of the source, the observation direction, the light spectrum, and the atmospheric molecular and aerosol constituents, we wanted to check whether the measurements made with these devices show any intrinsic dependence on the polarization of the incoming light. Although the SQM detectors do not purposely include any polarizing optical element, some polarization dependent effects could potentially arise from the presence of anisotropic materials (e.g. some kinds of plastics) producing differential Fresnel losses in the orthogonal vibration components of the incoming field.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Calculating spectral irradiance indoors

The spectral composition of the light that reaches any indoor work plane depends on the characteristics of the light sources and the spectral reflectances of the surrounding surfaces due to the multiple reflections experienced by the light rays along their paths from the source to the observation point. We show that in indoor spaces, the source and surface radiances must obey a definite self-consistent relationship derived from the fact that each illuminated surface point acts as a secondary source of light. It is then established that the spectral irradiance on any plane is linearly dependent on the spectral radiance of the light source. The explicit integral form of this relationship provides a theoretical framework for a quantitative description of the surface effects. Additionally, under very general assump-tions, we show that the spectral irradiance can be computed from the spectral flux of the source through a simple multiplication by a wavelength-dependent function. This function, with units of inverse surface (1/m2), provides a convenient way for evaluating the effects that arbitrary changes in the source spectrum will produce on the spectral irradiance at the indoor point under study.Postprint (author's final draft

On lamps, walls, and eyes: the spectral radiance field and the evaluation of light pollution indoors

Light plays a key role in the regulation of different physiological processes, through several visual and non-visual retinal phototransduction channels whose basic features are being unveiled by recent research. The growing body of evidence on the significance of these effects has sparked a renewed interest in the determination of the light field at the entrance pupil of the eye in indoor spaces. Since photic interactions are strongly wavelength-dependent, a significant effort is being devoted to assess the relative merits of the spectra of the different types of light sources available for use at home and in the workplace. The spectral content of the light reaching the observer eyes in indoor spaces, however, does not depend exclusively on the sources: it is partially modulated by the spectral reflectance of the walls and surrounding surfaces, through the multiple reflections of the light beams along all possible paths from the source to the observer. This modulation can modify significantly the non-visual photic inputs that would be produced by the lamps alone, and opens the way for controlling-to a certain extent-the subject's exposure to different regions of the optical spectrum. In this work we evaluate the expected magnitude of this effect and we show that, for factorizable sources, the spectral modulation can be conveniently described in terms of a set of effective filter-like functions that provide useful insights for lighting design and light pollution assessment. The radiance field also provides a suitable bridge between indoor and outdoor light pollution studies.Postprint (author's final draft

Determining Longitude: A Brief History

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Monitoring transition: expected night sky brightness trends in different photometric bands

Several light pollution indicators are commonly used to monitor the effects of the transition from outdoor lighting systems based on traditional gas-discharge lamps to solid-state light sources. In this work we analyze a subset of these indicators, including the artificial zenithal night sky brightness in the visual photopic and scotopic bands, the brightness in the specific photometric band of the widely used Sky Quality Meter (SQM), and the top-of-atmosphere radiance detected by the VIIRS-DNB radiometer onboard the satellite Suomi-NPP. Using a single-scattering approximation in a layered atmosphere we quantitatively show that, depending on the transition scenarios, these indicators may show different, even opposite behaviors. This is mainly due to the combined effects of the changes in the sources' spectra and angular radiation patterns, the wavelength- dependent atmospheric propagation processes and the differences in the detector spectral sensitivity bands. It is suggested that the possible presence of this differential behavior should be taken into account when evaluating light pollution indicator datasets for assessing the outcomes of public policy decisions regarding the upgrading of outdoor lighting systems.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio