The sky brightness is a good indicator of the level of light pollution in any given place.
Higher brightness values correspond to darker skies (e.g. at sunset this value rises sharply) and, consequently, to lower levels of pollution.
Sky brightness measurements can be affected by cloud coverage, thus light pollution estimates need to take this factor into account.
Our measurements were obtained using a Unihedron SQM-LR sqky quality meter (courtesy Salvador Bará - Facultad de F&í;sica de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Galicia).
Graphics obtained using free software PySQM.
PySQM is a multi-platform, open-source software designed to read and plot data from Unihedron SQM-LE and SQM-LU photometers, giving as an output files with the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) NSBM Community Standards for Reporting Skyglow Observations. (http://www.darksky.org/night-sky-conservation/248) PySQM is distributed under GNU GPL, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. See the file LICENSE.txt for details. This software has been developed by Mireia Nievas (UCM) with the invaluable help of: Jaime Zamorano (UCM), Laura Barbas (OAN) & Pablo de Vicente (OAN).
If you use our observations please make reference to:
"data of Raúl C. Lima (CITEUC & ESS-Porto),
made available by Centro de Investigação da Terra e
do Espaço da Universidade de Coimbra, through the Space Weather service
SPINLab (Space-Planetary Interactions Monitoring and Forecasting Laboratory)".
