[X] My Assistant

[edstrick]

One of the Lunokhods had sky-brightness photometers which (as I recall) detected significant sky brightness during twilight and the daytime, apparently due to sunlight scattered by ?electrostatically? levitated (or otherwise suborbitally lifted) dust.

The ASSUMPTION that the lunar sky is perfectly black in the daytime is probably not true and indicates that even telescopes that are well-shielded from sunlight or lunar-surface reflected light will have lunar-dust-atmosphere interference during the day.

[nprev]

Hmm....I understand the implications for optical Moon-based observations, but how about radio astronomy? I remember all the talk about the farside being the only truly radio-quiet locale in the Solar System...would this phenomenon produce significant interference in certain bands, or even gunk up a high-gain antenna?

Come to that, does the Moon in fact have a sort of virtual Heaviside layer as a result of this which might make the farside not as radio-quiet as was generally thought?

[SacramentoBob]

One of the Lunokhods had sky-brightness photometers which (as I recall) detected significant sky brightness during twilight and the daytime, apparently due to sunlight scattered by ?electrostatically? levitated (or otherwise suborbitally lifted) dust.

The ASSUMPTION that the lunar sky is perfectly black in the daytime is probably not true and indicates that even telescopes that are well-shielded from sunlight or lunar-surface reflected light will have lunar-dust-atmosphere interference during the day.

Pardon me for barging in on your discussion. There is an interesting article about electrostatically charged lunar dust particles at: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1899.pdf ; Apollo and Lunar Surveyor observations indicate that there MIGHT be Lunar "Dust Storms" at the on-set of twilight on the Moon! - Sacramento Bob

[Phil Stooke]

Those dust storms are not too stormy. This link:

http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/spac...pr01/spudis.htm

(1/3 down the page) points out that the Apollo lunar reflectors are not at all affected by dust after more than 30 years. I've seen similar comments by the laser people themselves.

Phil