Abstract
Night sky brightness is increasing due to human activity in many parts of the world. There are specific concerns about increasing night sky brightness in Essex County, Ontario, Canada due to increasing use of large-scale supplemental lighting in commercial greenhouses. Increasing concerns about sky brightness have led to implementation of by-laws during the past few years that require greenhouses to fully or partially close light-abatement curtains when supplemental lights are used at night. The sky brightness at a particular location is strongly dependent on all anthropogenic light sources in the area, as well as cloud cover, weather, and moon phase. A longitudinal sky brightness study was completed to investigate the impact of these factors on the sky brightness. Four different locations were identified for long-term sky brightness studies: (1) a “remote” rural location, (2) an urban location in the city of Windsor, (2) a small town location within the town of Leamington, and (4) a rural area with several nearby greenhouses and urbanization. Near-continuous sky brightness measurements were collected between fall 2022 and spring 2023 at each location using Unihedron sky quality meters (SQMs), a widely used sensor for assessing sky brightness. Measured sky brightness is compared between sites. The impact of cloud and moon conditions are assessed: both are shown to contribute to overall sky brightness. Finally, observations are presented on the relative brightness observed between the four sites, particularly in clear or overcast conditions.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank several site owners for hosting the SQM sensors, without whom this project would not have been possible. We thank William “Danny” Lubitz, Andrew Jenner and Dr. Bill van Heyst at the University of Windsor for supporting the SQM placement at the Urban site. This project was completed as part of a larger research program supported by funding from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) Agri-Food Innovation Alliance program.
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Lubitz, W., Henry, H., Nauta, A., Tasnim, S., Graham, T. (2023). Comparative Assessment of Winter Night Sky Brightness in Southwestern Ontario. In: Ting, D.SK., Vasel-Be-Hagh, A. (eds) Engineering to Adapt. TELAC 2023. Springer Proceedings in Energy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47237-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47237-4_6
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