Abstract
Burners of metal halide lamps used for illumination are generally made of polycrystalline alumina ceramic (PCA) which is translucent to visible light. We show that the difficulty of selecting a line of sight through the lamp prevents the use of optical emission diagnostic. X-rays photons are mainly absorbed and not scattered by PCA. Absorption by mercury atoms contributing to the discharge allowed us to determine the density of mercury in the lamp. By comparing diagnostic methods, we put in evidence the difficulty of taking into account the scattering of light mathematically.