Optics of the Moon

Optics of the Moon presents methods for interpreting optics of surfaces on the Moon with complicated structures. For example, the book illustrates how phase-ratio techniques can lead to the detection of surface structure anomalies, describes polarimetric studies of the lunar surface and their use, and addresses many other questions relating to the regolith-like surfaces of the Moon, such as why the Moon looks like a ball at a large phase angle and like a disk in full moon, why the lunar surface has slight color variations, and why at large phase angles its polarization degree closely correlates with albedo.

1. Historical Outline
2. Definitions
3. Photometry
4. Modeling Light Scatter from Lunar-Like Surfaces
5. Polarimetry
6. Conclusion
7. Appendix 1: Gourmet Photometric Function
8. Appendix 2: Shadow Effect on Random Surfaces

Researchers and graduate students in Earth and Planetary Science and Remote Sensing

Professor Yuriy Shkuratov is Professor and Department Head for the Astronomy Department at Kharkov National University. He was also the Director of the Astronomical Institute of V.N. Karazin Kharkov National University from 2004-2014. He is the Leading Research Scientist at the Institute of Radio Astronomy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He has more than 700 scientific publications devoted to the investigation of optical properties of solid surfaces of celestial bodies and arbitrary shaped particles. These works include chapters for seven collective monographs. He first obtained images of polarimetric anomalies of the Moon at large phase angles. He has performed numerous laboratory photometric and polarimetric measurements of structure analogs of the lunar regolith, which provide a reliable experimental basis for the verification and selection of theoretical models for the opposition effect and negative polarization. Professor Shkuratov has contributed theoretical models of light scattering by particles and surfaces with complicated structure. In particular, he first proposed the model of negative polarization based on the mechanism of coherent backscatter enhancement.
Dr. Gordon Videen is a physicist for the Army Research Laboratory. He has also been a Program Manager in Atmospheric Science at the Army Research Laboratory and been a Visiting Scientist at the University of Amsterdam. Dr. Videen has performed experimental, theoretical, and modeling work investigating remote sensing of complex systems ranging from atmospheric aerosols and cometary comae to extended regolith systems. Many of these works have focused on obtaining information from the polarization and light-scattering properties of the systems. This research has culminated in more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, eighteen book chapters, as well as 11 co-edited books and 14 special journal issues, 10 international scientific conferences and workshops, and 15 patents.