Earth's Albedo via Relative Photometry
A research project that seeks to determine Earth's albedo through photometric methods.
What it is
This is a research project initiated in my Science One program, where we, as students, were required to propose an independent research project, and work through the entire research process in pairs. This project aims to determine Earth’s albedo by comparing Moon’s brightness during the waxing crescent period, where one part of the Moon is lit up via reflection of sunlight, while the other part of the Moon is lit up via earthshine. We used photometric methods to collect data and perform analysis on these data points, to determine Earth’s albedo through a formula derived from past literatures.
Highlights
- Derived and implemented a photometric Earth albedo model from primary literature, incorporating earthshine ratios, lunar phase functions, and atmospheric extinction corrections.
- Processed telescope image data using AstroImageJ and performed Python-based analyses across ISO and exposure parameter space; estimated Earth albedo at 0.262 (vs. literature value of 0.30).
- Presented results at a student-led academic conference and co-authored a 29-page research paper with a faculty mentor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UBC.