How Dark Are Your Skies, Really? An Astrophotographer’s Perspective.

As an astrophotographer you want to capture the stars under as dark a sky as possible. We use tools like light pollution maps to estimate how dark a location will be. But how dark is your sky, really?
In this video I am surprised to learn that I have totally misunderstood the bortle scale for years! I also go out to measure the darkness of the sky with a Sky Quality Meter.
#Astrophotography #Nightscapephotography #NightSky #LightPollution #DarkSkies #stargazing
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Original article by John E. Bortle: skyandtelescop...

[@Seegurkenwombat]

Great video!! Loved the last heather sjot from Gerlinde! I wish you guys the best for Perseids! Have fun!!

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Thanks Jan! Sure is a killer shot. You too have fun 💪

[@nightscapejournals]

Nicely done, mate. You made the subject really digestible and interesting. 👏 I guess sky conditions also massively impacts the results for both Bortle and SQM - a bit more moisture etc and we’ll get worse results from both.

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Thanks Paul! And you do make a good point. Atmospheric conditions definately impact the sky. Moisture for sure has a large impact which scatters the light pollution around more than it should.

[@Mark_Wierda]

Great interesting video. Learned something new today about measuring light pollution. How is the recovery going now? Nice to see that you have been out again 🌌

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Thanks for letting me know Mark! Great to hear you've picked up some new knowledge. Recovery is going forward, slow but steady. Managed to get out 2 entire nights for the Perseids with the help of the guys, which was absolutely fantastic!

[@Alan-vk6bk]

I'm due to move from bortle 7 skies to 3-4. I've had a taster of the views there and they are breathtaking. It would be nice to see what the skies actually are. The milky way hits you straight away and m31 is easy. Can't wait to get my scope and camera up and shooting!!

[@StarScaperPhoto]

That sounds like a dream!

[@marprol_]

Nice!! The temperature of de SQM itself can interfere in the measuring. Also the atmosphere conditions and the area of the sky you are pointing... not the same pointing to de MW than any other spot around the zenit.

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Atmospheric conditions and which part of the sky I already noticed. The rest is new for me, thanks for sharing!

[@calebwhite681]

Literally just got my SQM meter yesterday! Excited to contribute to the Globe at Night project. I have 21.45 within a 45min drive so I feel pretty fortunate. further north is some VERY dark skies, excited to measure those areas.

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Wow, that's really good!

[@Kevin.kistermann]

Great video Jeroen and I thought Bortle is a classified measurement method. So now you have to come to the Eifel nationalparc again and measure my sky 😜

[@StarScaperPhoto]

@@Kevin.kistermann thanks for watching again Kevin! I might just do a new measure of Eifel the coming days 🥸

[@Kevin.kistermann]

@@StarScaperPhoto are you in the Eifel this weekend?

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on forecast. I wouldn't rule our Kortenborner Kapelle though 😉.

[@Kevin.kistermann]

@StarScaperPhoto ah okay I am also try to capture some shots on the weekend

[@StarScaperPhoto]

@Kevin.kistermann good luck! Wishing for lots of Perseids 🤞

[@robvercouteren]

crazy good details you guys manage to get out of that sky, awesome

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Thanks Rob! We try 😄

[@billwright9518]

Very interesting, our light pollution here in southern England is really bad as well, the bortle scale for me says a 4/5 I'm sure it's more like a six.😢

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Yup, it is definately getting worse. I am glad though we as photohraphers have the option to collect more data and do post processing. Nothing beats being under a true dark sky yourself though.

[@eddelarie8161]

Step over to the Rotterdam/The Hague area. Or enjoy any of the Dutch Green houses. Grtz from Borttle 8-9

[@billwright9518]

​@eddelarie8161 wow you must do narrowband 😅

[@kookaburra574]

Hard in europe to find something good, in hungary theres barely any REALLY dark places. I went 150km away to find 21.86 dark sky, it was amazing, i saw hundreds of meteorites and captured great images, also I have never seen the milky way like that, its truly astonishing. Althought I wouldve loved if there is a proper subject to capture too, like some castle or something, and its quite annoying everywhere I went there were hunters shooting, I even ran into one who just came to the site, he let me shoot for a while, then I went somewhere else, I was too loud for him(I was there first though, here in hungary hunters are really obnoxious...), anyways second site was just as bad, somebody shooting about, they all have thermal cameras, didn't want to get shot so I went away again, finally found a good location with a nice sunflower field and on the side of busy street so no way they shoot in that direction, only downside sometimes cars coming ruining my exposure. Otherwise good, i even gave up on shooting for a bit, just chill, laid on my back like in movies. Awesome experience. (Elon can suck a fat one with his Star Link sattelites, 6284 sattelites in orbit are Star Link out of 9900 total sattelites, crazy!, ruins my pictures and even naked eye view)

[@StarScaperPhoto]

21.86 is amazing! What a story though, sounds like quite the adventure 😅

[@massimobollini4622]

I live in the Po Valley, north part of Italy, and there is a huge light pollution, the quality for the dark sky is terrible, i am forced to go to observe the sky from Apennino mountains with SQM 20.90/21.00. Also there are affected by the lights of the surrounded towns.

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Dark skies are rare indeed unfortunately. I think we should try nevertheless to make the best of what we get as astrophotographers, no matter the sky quality.

[@MatthewHolevinski]

Never realized just how fortunate I've always had it here. I've never not been able to look at the milky way.

[@StarScaperPhoto]

@@MatthewHolevinski living in a dark sky area is getting more and more rare indeed.

[@triestwildriders5922]

Let me guess, Australia? 😅

[@MatthewHolevinski]

@@triestwildriders5922 Kansas :)

[@marcelvandenbos]

Weer een interessante video, moet dat artikel over die bortle schaal eens proberen te vinden om te lezen.

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Dankjewel! Die ga je wel vinden hoor. 1 van de eerste resultaten als je googlet op bortle scale.

[@marcelvandenbos]

@@StarScaperPhoto dat gaat me lukken 😉

[@IrfanBayuaji]

Great videos always, Jeroen! I'm wondering if other than mercury/sodium lights would make differences. LED/neon lights known by its scattered lights on the atmosphere. Oftenly, a little amount of haze might ruin my shot due to lack of detail. What do you think?

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Thanks for watching! I am not sure if the type of lighting matters that much as compared to the direction they are facing. If you use light pollution filters, sodium is much more easy to isolate than LED, but other than that...

[@Hilmi12]

The milkyway is bright enough to affect the reading. So will any planets in the FOV. I have been creating a map on my website of SQM readings for my location at our website and found differences with the satellite based data

[@StarScaperPhoto]

That's super interesting indeed!

[@matej.mlakar]

What an interesting video... I dislike using bortle scale as I am not sure if it gives an accurate representation when shooting huge MW panos. I could be standing under bortle 3, but horizon could be 5 or 9. Also, I think light pollution map might be wrong for your place, because the data is from 2016? But I could be wrong, so please double check that :D.

[@StarScaperPhoto]

@@matej.mlakar thanks Matej! You make a good point, the direction you photograph in is maybe even more important than the sky directly above you. Lightpollutionmap gives readings from 2015, which are a bit outdated. Light pollution atlas though showed resultsnof 21.69 which were rather accurate compared to my own 21.61 readings.

[@Bortle10]

Bortle4 huh...

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Just on the edge of a 5, but just in the 4 range indeed. I'm not complaining though :-).

[@Bortle10]

@@StarScaperPhoto Waar denk je dat ik zit? :)

[@triestwildriders5922]

In winter the skies are definitely better, less moisture in atmosphere and more transparency. Saturday I was in Austria under a bortle 2 (21.93) rated sky at 2000m of altitude (drove more than 200km). It was amazing, the cygnus area was like tridimensional but unfortunately a bit too much moisture ruined the sky a little...magnifying the lights around, and condensing on all my lenses 😅 Also there was too much airplane...it was so annoying because in processing the intermittent plane lightswere mistaken by the stacking software for stars! 🫨

[@StarScaperPhoto]

Can't help the airplanes, right? ;-). Hope you'll fix it though. Sounds like a great location.