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As a natural satellite of the Earth, the moon is a prime target for planetary remote sensing exploration. However, lunar polarization studies are not popular in the planetary science community. Polarimetry of the lunar surface had not been carried out from a spacecraft until the Korean lunar exploration program was initiated. In previous polarization observations of the moon, images of different polarization states were obtained by a rotating linear polarizer. This method is not well suited for future polarization observations from space-based spacecraft. To this end, we present a new kind of polarized observation of the moon using a division of a focal-plane polarization camera and propose a pipeline on the processing method of the polarization observation of the moon. We obtain a map of the degree of white-light polarization on the nearside of the moon through polarization observation, data processing, and correction. The observation and data processing methods presented in this study have the potential to serve as a reference for analyzing polarization observation data from future orbiting spacecraft. These are expected to lead to new discoveries in the fields of astronomy and planetary science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to study the probability distribution of photon reflection on rough surface experimentally and theoretically. We showed experimentally that for photon reflection on rough surface, the distribution was characterized by the ratio τ/σ, which was defined as the “correlation roughness” of the reflecting surface. Quantitative experimental results based on single-photon counter are compared to the Monte Carlo simulation results. At last, how the intensity of low light-level can be retrieved from photon counting results using improved models is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]