Spectrum of Moonlight

Hello Guest,

An interesting question and one I've never really thought about before!

When I Googled, this is what I found (not sure why you didn't):

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/fromcomments/223688.php

and

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_spectrum_of_the_moon

Now, I have not taken the time to research these answers, but have you seen these sites? If not, you may need to zero in on honing your searching skills.

Mike

Thanks. I had not seen these sites and I suspected the spectrun was the same. Dont know how I missed these on my searches. Perhaps it would be worthwhile for someone to put forth a tutorial on making internet searches.

These sites only provide discussion, but no hard data on the intensity and wavelengths.

".......blame it on the boogie....."

with apologies to the late Michael Jackson.

Well this should be obvious. It's the same as the spectrum for cheese, but with strong spikes in the 560 nm range.

Heh! YELLOW-GREEN cheese

Since moonlight is reflected sunlight I would expect little difference between it and sunlight - just a guess - but then what do I know.

Edmund

Approximately 1 lux at 4100K.

The spectrum of sunlight, because the sun is made out of gas, consists of bright emission lines where the light is emitted by the hot gas atoms and dark absorption lines where the light is absorbed by cooler gasses. These same lines are present in sunlight reflected from the moon and planets. The intensities would be different depending on the characteristics of the reflecting surface.