Sky Quality Meter

The Sky Quality Meter - L measures the brightness of the night sky in magnitudes per square arcsecond. Perfect for checking how dark you night sky is and for dark sky reserve projects.

Unprecedented sensitivity in a handheld meter.

Uses:

• Find out how good the night or site REALLY is.
• Compare the sky brightness at different sites.
• Monitor sky brightness through the night, night-to-night, and year-to-year.
• Set planetarium dome illumination to mimic the skies people are likely to experience elsewhere in the city.
• Determine which nights show the greatest promise for finding the 'faintest fuzzies'.
• Calibrate the effect of sky brightness on qualitative measures such as the Bortle Scale.
• Investigate how sky brightness correlates with the solar cycle and month-to-month sunspot activity.
• Help provide local ground truth for future sky brightness prediction with the Clear Sky Clock.
• CCD users can make a correlation between the SQM reading and when the background reaches some ADC level.