so beautiful by the moonlight?! [RE-wrenches]

[Joel Davidson]

In 1978, I measured 1/200th of short circuit current from my PV array in the full moon on a cold clear night at 2200 feet elevation in the Ozark mountains of northwest Arkansas. Was it moonlight or moonshine?

from http://website.lineone.net/~petergrego/anjul97.htm
When our eyes are dazzled by the full Moon riding high in the sky, it is difficult to
acknowledge the fact that the Moon is really a very dark object. In fact, it is one of the
least reflective worlds in the entire solar system, with an average albedo (reflectivity) of
just 0.07 - in other words, only 7 out of every 100 photons which hit the lunar surface
manage to bounce back into space. The actual intensity of moonlight is only a quarter that
of a burning candle placed a metre away (0.25 lux). If the Moon were a smooth sphere then
its average albedo would be raised a little. But its surface is rough and irregular, and
largely because of the shadows thrown up by these features towards the terminator, the
brightness of the half-Moon of first or last quarter phase is not one half of the full Moon’s
value as suggested by its area, but just one ninth.

http://cochise.biosci.arizona.edu/~art/SAS/SAS03/asdExtra2.html
http://www.seniority.co.uk/content/archive/homehobbies_artsandcrafts_moonlight_photography.html
http://www.weatherwise.org/qr/qry.moonbow.html
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/moon_ap_per.html
http://www.aas.org/publications/baas/v26n2/aas184/abs/S2610.html
http://skepdic.com/fullmoon.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/moon.html
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_337.html
http://www.urbanlegends.com/medical/full_moon_fun.html
...and finally from our dear friend, H.G. Wells comes http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/12/

"Mangelsdorf, Marco" wrote:

> All,
>
> OK, I gotta get a definitive answer to this one that has been plaguing me for a while.  All you out there who have experience with a-Si, Uni-Solar and otherwise, has anyone actually seen the array put out measurable power from moonlight?  I had a guy on friday tell me that he had seen 5 amps from a 20 amp a-Si array under that cold hearted orb that rules the night.  If true I'm going to have to start saying nice things about my local Uni-Solar competitor.
>
> marco
> ProVision Technologies, Inc.
> Hilo, Hawai'i
> www.provisiontechnologies.com
>
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