Tag: dark sky

It’s been a while since I last posted something about light-pollution maps, which are used by astronomers to determine the best places to observe the night sky. But a couple of online light-pollution maps came to my attention recently: the Light Pollution Map at lightpollutionmap.app and the Light Pollution Map at lightpollutionmap.info. They’re different services despite being similar in name and in function, though I’d give the edge to .app in user-friendliness; .info has more tools but is fiddlier. (The usual tech dichotomy.) Confusingly, .info, not .app, is the one with the iPhone/iPad app. Both rely on NASA VIIRS data and give Bortle scale measurements for a selected location, which is the main thing. [Maps Mania/MetaFilter]

Previously: Light Pollution Maps; Testing Light Pollution Maps; Testing Light Pollution Maps Redux; Darker Than You Think; New Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness.

A new online atlas of artificial sky brightness is now available, based on updated light pollution data published last week. (There’s also a 3D globe version that may not work in all browsers.) Light pollution, as I’ve blogged before, is the bane of professional and amateur astronomers alike, obscuring fainter objects and interfering with observations, both naked-eye and through telescopes. As the article in Science Advances puts it, “This atlas shows that more than 80% of the world and more than 99% of the U.S. and European populations live under light-polluted skies. The Milky Way is hidden from more than one-third of humanity, including 60% of Europeans and nearly 80% of North Americans.” [Rumsey Map Center]

Previously: Light Pollution Maps; Testing Light Pollution Maps; Testing Light Pollution Maps Redux; Darker Than You Think.