Located aboard S-NPP, the VIIRS is

Located aboard S-NPP, the VIIRS is a 22-band scanning radiometer with a nominal spatial resolution of 375 m in thefive imagery bands (I-bands) and 750 m in both the 16 moderateresolution bands (M-bands) and the dayenight band (DNB)
(Polivka et al., 2015). Over a single orbit, the intensity of visible light
that VIIRS encounters can range seven orders of magnitude (from
daytime cloud reflection of solar radiation to nighttime illumination by airglow, starlight, and zodiacal light in clear sky conditions)
(Lee and Miller, 2006). To achieve high radiometric resolution
across such a large dynamical range of visible light, DNB is deigned
to: (a) have a broad spectral coverage (of 0.4e0.9mm and half width
and half maxima of the spectral response function at 0.7mm,Fig. 1),
and (b) select its amplification gain dynamically from three
simultaneously collecting stages (groups of detectors) (Lee et al.,
2006). Each of three stages (corresponding to high, medium, and
low gains, respectively) covers a radiance range of more than 500:1
and has generous overlap with its adjacent stage(s) to ensure a
good single-to-noise ratio (Lee et al., 2006). In average, DNB's
radiometric uncertainties are estimated as 3.5%, 7.8%, and 11.0%
during daytime, twilight, and nighttime conditions, respectively
(Miller et al., 2012). With such accuracy, DNB data is shown to be
valuable for studying meteorological and surface features illuminated by moonlight as well as for detecting airglow structures in
the mesosphere at night (Miller et al., 2012)