Light Pollution Maps

[rizole]

Now I have a credible night camera I've started taking more of an interest in places I can take it. Despite living in a relatively rural area, large metropoliton cities and conurbations are all over the place in my neck of the wood so light pollution is still an issue. Go up 3 or 400meters and I can see the glow of Manchester in one direction and Bradford and Leeds in another.

So this map of light pollution will come in handy when we can all move around again, maybe by spring/summer perhaps.

Home - CPRE

We are CPRE, the countryside charity. Learn how we're working for a beautiful, thriving countryside for everyone - and how to get involved.

www.nightblight.cpre.org.uk

And for those of you not in my part of the world I found this.

Light pollution map

Interactive world light pollution map. The map uses NASA VIIRS, World Atlas 2015, Aurora prediction, observatories, clouds and SQM/SQC overlay contributed by users.

www.lightpollutionmap.info

 

[sinnerjohn]

Funny how the light virtually traces the Pennines, no hope for me!

 

[terse]

Here's the west coast of the US, where RoseCat, chineezguy, and I live:

And here's my local area. We're near Olympia on the map.

 

[rizole]

Comparing the world and UK maps there's a disparity in what's being measured.
The world map measures Zenith sky brightnes in magnitude/arc second squared with the higher numbers being darker. The UK map is Nanowats/cm2/sr with lower numbers being darker.

Not sure I'm motivated to understand what they mean. Probably go for the "go to places that look dark on the map and compare them on the fly" method.