A search for forward scattering of sunlight from lunar libration clouds

An attempt to determine the radiance of forward scattered sunlight from particles in lunar libration regions was made with the white light coronagraph on Skylab. The libration regions could not be distinguished against the solar K + F coronal background; an upper limit to the libration cloud radiance is determined to be 2·5 × 10 −11B ⊚ , where B ⊚ is the mean radiance of the solar disk. Employing a model of the particle composition and size distribution which has been proposed for the interplanetary medium, we determine upper limits for the density enhancements in the libration region from the upper limit of the forward scattered radiance presented herein. Similarly, the actual spatial density enhancement is calculated using the earlier observations of the libration region backscattered radiance (Roach, 1975). Enhancements of a factor of 10 2–10 3 are thus determined, depending upon material composition and size distribution used. By combining the forward and backscatter observations, it is possible to eliminate from consideration clouds whose power law particle size distribution exponent k is 2·5 and complex index of refraction m is 1·33−0.05 i and 1·50−0.05 i (i.e. absorbing ice and quartz particles, respectively). Finally, the radiance contrast of a possible model libration cloud is calculated with respect to the K- and F-corona/zodiaal light background and is shown to be a maximum in the vicinity of solar elongation angle ∼30 deg.