Commission 21: Light of the Night Sky

Adolf N. Witt (1) , Jayant Murthy (2) , Bengt A. S. Gustafson (3) , W. Jack Baggaley (4) , Eli Dwek (5) , Anny Chantal Levasseur-Regourd (6) , Ingrid Mann (7) , Kalevi Mattila , Jun-Ichi Watanabe (8, 9)

1 Ritter Astrophysical Research Center
2 IIA - Indian Institute of Astrophysics
3 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Uppsala]
4 DPA - Department of Physics and Astronomy [Christchurch]
5 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
6 PLANETO - LATMOS
7 Graduate School of Science and Engineering [Higashiosaka]
8 Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory
9 Japanese National Observatory

Commission 21 consists of IAU members and consultants with expertise and interest in the study of the light of the night sky and its various diffuse components, at all accessible electromagnetic frequencies. In cosmic distance scales, the subjects of Commission 21 range from airglow and tropospheric scattering in Earth's atmosphere, through zodiacal light in the solar system, including thermal emission from interplanetary dust, integrated starlight in the Milky Way galaxy, diffuse galactic light due to dust scattering in the galactic diffuse interstellar medium, thermal emissions from interstellar dust and free free emission from ionized interstellar gas, to various diffuse extragalactic background sources, including the cosmologically important cosmic microwave background (CMB). Observations of the diffuse night sky brightness at any frequency typically include signals from several of these sources, and it has been the historic mandate of Commission 21 to foster the necessary collaboration of experts from the different astronomical sub-disciplines involved.

Domaines: Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]; Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

Adolf N. Witt, Jayant Murthy, Bengt A. S. Gustafson, W. Jack Baggaley, Eli Dwek, et al.. Commission 21: Light of the Night Sky. Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, Vol. 4, Transactions T27A, Reports on Astronomy 2006-2009, 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. pp.171-173, ⟨10.1017/S174392130802543X⟩. ⟨hal-00790631⟩