Bará, S. (2019). Black-body luminance and magnitudes per square arcsecond in the Johnson-Cousins BVR photometric bands. Photon. Lett. Pl., 11(3), 63.
Abstract: A relevant amount of light pollution studies deal with the unwanted visual effects of artificial light at night, including the anthropogenic luminance of the sky that hinders the observation of the celestial bodies which are a main target of ground-based astrophysical research, and a key asset of the intangible heritage of humankind. Most quantitative measurements and numerical models, however, evaluate the anthropogenic sky radiance in any of the standard Johnson-Cousins UBVRI photometric bands, generally in the V one. Since the Johnson-Cousins V band is not identical with the visual CIE V-lambda used to assess luminance, the conversion between these two photometric systems turns out to be spectrum-dependent. Given its interest for practical applications, in this Letter we provide the framework to perform this conversion and the transformation constants for black-body spectra of different absolute temperatures.
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Bará, S., Lima, R.C. (2018). Photons without borders: quantifying light pollution transfer between territories. International Journal of Sustainable Lighting, 20(2), 51–61.
Abstract: The light pollution levels experienced at any given site generally depend on a wide number of artificial light sources distributed throughout the surrounding territory. Since photons can travel long distances before being scattered by the atmosphere, any effective proposal for reducing local light pollution levels needs an accurate assessment of the relative weight of all intervening light sources, including those located tens or even hundreds of km away. In this paper we describe several ways of quantifying and visualizing these relative weights. Particular emphasis is made on the aggregate contribution of the municipalities, which are -in many regions of the world- the administrative bodies primarily responsible for the planning and maintenance of public outdoor lighting systems.
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Bará, S., Ulla, A. (2018). Light Pollution in the Galician Atlantic Islands Maritime-Terrestrial National Park 2018 Report. USC Tragsa.
Abstract: The Galician Atlantic Islands Maritime-Terrestrial National Park (PNMTIAG), with the exception of the island of Cortegada, still has night skies of acceptable quality. However, the PNMTIAG islands are under strong photic pressures, both internal and external, that hinder the preservation of the basic features of the natural night, and call for an immediate action of all concerned stakeholders
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Bará, S., & Escofet, J. (2018). On lamps, walls, and eyes: The spectral radiance field and the evaluation of light pollution indoors. J of Quant Spect and Rad Trans, 205, 267–277.
Abstract: 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.
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Bará, S., Falchi, F., Furgoni, R., & Lima, R. C. (2020). Fast Fourier-transform calculation of artificial night sky brightness maps. Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 240, 106658.
Abstract: Light pollution poses a growing threat to optical astronomy, in addition to its detrimental impacts on the natural environment, the intangible heritage of humankind related to the contemplation of the starry sky and, potentially, on human health. The computation of maps showing the spatial distribution of several light pollution related functions (e.g. the anthropogenic zenithal night sky brightness, or the average brightness of the celestial hemisphere) is a key tool for light pollution monitoring and control, providing the scientific rationale for the adoption of informed decisions on public lighting and astronomical site preservation. The calculation of such maps from satellite radiance data for wide regions of the planet with sub-kilometric spatial resolution often implies a huge amount of basic pixel operations, requiring in many cases extremely large computation times. In this paper we show that, using adequate geographical projections, a wide set of light pollution map calculations can be reframed in terms of two-dimensional convolutions that can be easily evaluated using conventional fast Fourier-transform (FFT) algorithms, with typical computation times smaller than 10^-6 s per output pixel.
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