Transfer of diffuse astronomical light and airglow in scattering Earth atmosphere

To understand an observed distribution of atmospheric diffuse light (ADL) over an entire meridian, we have solved rigorously, with the quasi-diffusion method, the problem of radiative transfer in an anisotropically scattering spherical atmosphere of the earth. In addition to the integrated starlight and the zodiacal light we placed a narrow layer of airglow emission on top of the scattering earth atmosphere. The calculated distribution of the ADL brightness over zenith distance shows good agreement with the observed one. The agreement can be utilized in deriving the zodiacal light brightness at small solar elongations from the night sky brightness observed at large zenith distances.