Light Pollution Survey in Hungarian National Parks

Abstract

We have started a light pollution survey in the Hungarian national parks. We use a mobile laboratory consisting of digital cameras and robotic panorama heads to gather high-resolution panorama imaging radiometry. The same type of cameras with fish-eye lenses are used in fix monitoring stations. Parallel to the imaging radiometry, we measure the spectral distribution of the sky radiation. The spectroradiometry provides additional calibration check on the measurements and further information on the sources of light. The mobile laboratory provides an excellent spatial resolution at a given national park while the monitoring all-sky camera stations add the possibility to detect temporal changes in night sky quality. We developed new SI traceable metrics for the measurement of night sky quality. The RGB colour channels of the camera provide an optimal way to obtain multispectral radiance information. The selected metric is the band-averaged spectral radiance. Besides, we use a colour enhancement technique to find traces of different sources of night sky radiance. In the near future, we expect a large amount of high-quality data from the Hungarian national parks, which provide an outstanding possibility in light pollution related and atmospheric research. In the paper, we present the first results of the sky quality survey.