A preliminary investigation of the effects of the background sky upon polarimetric measurements

Details A preliminary investigation of the effects of the background sky upon polarimetric measurements A preliminary investigation of the effects of the background sky upon polarimetric measurements

Oct 1992

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992mnras.258..533f&link_type=abstract

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (ISSN 0035-8711), vol. 258, no. 3, p. 533-542.

Statistics

Computation

2

Astronomical Polarimetry, Polarized Radiation, Sky Radiation, Stellar Radiation, Atmospheric Scattering, Background Radiation, Computational Astrophysics, Faint Objects, Rayleigh Scattering

Scientific paper

A preliminary investigation is undertaken into the effects of the polarized background sky arising from the scattering (through the earth's atmosphere) of polarized light from a bright star, assuming a plane-parallel, Rayleigh scattering atmosphere. It is shown that, when the star plus background sky signal can be considered as arising entirely from the star under observation, the polarimetric acuracy of the star is insensitive to its position on the sky, the distance of the offset on the sky for signal subtraction and the position of the star within the field of view. It is found that, for stars fainter than 3rd magnitude, the apparent polarization can be altered by in excess of 0.005 percent in the presence of the full moon (compared to new moon values). As an aside, the apparent polarimetric variability of a star is considered when a polarimetrically varying faint star is present within the same field of view. It is shown that the polarimetric variability of the faint star cannot be automatically discounted.

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