Sky Surface Brightness at Mount Graham: UBVRI Science Observations with the Large Binocular Telescope

TL;DR

This study measures the sky brightness at Mount Graham using LBT data, demonstrating it remains among the darkest observatory sites, with brightness influenced by solar activity and observing conditions.

Contribution

First comprehensive UBVRI sky brightness measurements at Mount Graham during the LBT's binocular science runs, highlighting its competitiveness as a premier astronomical site.

Findings

Mount Graham has dark skies comparable to top observatories.

Sky brightness varies with solar activity, being darker during solar minimum.

No significant nightly trend in sky brightness was observed.

Abstract

We present the measurements of sky surface brightness on Mount Graham International Observatory obtained during the first binocular-mode science runs at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). A total of 860 images obtained on 23 moonless nights in the period Feb 2008-Jun 2008 were analyzed with our data quality assessment procedure. These data, taken at the solar minimum, show that Mt.Graham, in photometric conditions, still has one of the darkest skies, competing with the other first-class observatories. The zenith-corrected values are 21.98, 22.81, 21.81, 20.82 and 19.78 mag/arcsec^2 in U, B, V R and I, respectively. In photometric conditions, the sky background is ~0.1 mag/arcsec^2 higher than the median when observing toward Tucson and Phoenix but it may be up to ~0.5 mag/arcsec^2 higher in non-photometric conditions. The sky at Mt.Graham is ~0.32 mag/arcsec^2 brighter at airmass ~1.4 than at zenith but no significant trend was found with the time of the night. We demonstrated the dependence of the sky background at Mt.Graham on the solar activity for the first time. In fact in 2008, at B and V bands, the sky was ~0.3 mag /arcsec^2 darker than in 1999-2002. With these results we conclude that Mt.Graham is still a first-class observing site, comparable to the darkest sites in Hawaii, Chile and Canary Islands.