The Operational Linescan System (OLS) flown on the Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, has a unique
capability to record low light imaging data at night worldwide. These
data are archived at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC). The
useful data record stretches back to 1992 and is ongoing. The OLS
visible band detector observes radiances about one million times
dimmer than most other Earth observing satellites. The sensor is
typically operated in a high gain setting to enable the detection of
moonlit clouds. However, with six bit quantization and limited dynamic
range, the recorded data are saturated in the bright cores of urban
centers. A limited set of observations have been obtained at low lunar
illumination were obtained where the gain of the detector was set
significantly lower than its typical operational setting (sometimes by
a factor of 100). By combining these sparse data acquired at low gain
settings with the operational data acquired at high gain settings, we
have produced a global nighttime lights product for 2006 and other
years to follow with no sensor saturation. This product can be
related to radiances based on the pre-flights sensor calibration.
