How much sunlight can I get into my O'Neill cylinder and how much light needs to be artificial?

The cylinder is 32 km long in total, 8 km in diameter, with 3km long endcaps, resulting in a habital area with a length of 26 km (= and an area of cirka 754 km2). The main body of the cylinder is buried within a small asteroid with a diameter of roughly 26 km.

The end caps are windows into space in both directions, one of them tidally locked towards the sun, with a similar proximity of that of earth's. The windows (or at least the sun facing one) are closed for 8 hours within a 24 hour rythm, to mimick day and night.

There are two paired cylinders within the asteroid, with opposing rotation to keep them stable, but for the sake of the question we focus on one and the results will be copied into the other.

So the question is:

How far in reaches the sunlight?

Also, how much additional artificial light would be necessary to get "earth like daylight lightning" over the whole habitat? I guess an answer in percent would already be of help.

Edit: The habitat will be used as a nature conservatory, with plants and animals from a continental climate

posted almost 5 years ago

Backup Plan‭

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