The Dawn Sky Brightness Observations in the Preliminary Shubuh Prayer Time Determination

Abstract

The indication of began to enter the shubuh prayer time is when emerge the morning dawn and lasted until the sun rises. The sun position when emerge the morning dawn is below the intrinsic horizon marked with a minus sign (-) with the value of a certain height. The Ministry of Religious Affairs has set the sun altitudes of dawn in the shubuh prayer time with minus (-) 19°+ sunrise/sunset altitudes as standard is the reference time of dawn prayers in Indonesia. However, this provision in fact reap discourse in some quarters because it is not in accordance with the phenomenon of morning dawn emergence at the beginning of the shubuh prayer time empirically. This study aims to decide the morning dawn, as the beginning of dawn determinant. The tool used in this study is the Sky Quality Meter (SQM), to detecting the morning dawn emergence as a sign of the beginning of the shubuh prayer time. The results of this study found that the brightness of the sky throughout the night or the morning dawn in Tayu Beach, Pati, Central Java, in the span of four days of observation that is at 4: 31 a.m with an average altitude of the sun is -17°(17°below the horizon).