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Updated: May 29, 2026

Scattering And Absorption of Light in Planetary Regoliths
Published on: July 1, 2019
Effects of surface reflectance on skylight polarization measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory
Andrew R Dahlberg1, Nathan J Pust, Joseph A Shaw
1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Montana State University, 610 Cobleigh Hall, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA.
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.
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