Night Sky Quality Monitoring Report
Death Valley NP, California
Nevares Water Tank, February 22, 2006
To effectively manage any resource, we need to know what we have and what we've lost. "Light Pollution", the brightness in the nighttime sky due to artificial light, can be seen from almost every park. The NPS has developed a system for measuring sky brightness to quantify the source and severity of light pollution. This system, developed with the assistance from professional astronomers and the International Dark-sky Association, utilizes a research-grade digital camera to capture the entire sky with a series of images. Data clearly shows that even remote national parks are not immune from stray artificial light. Sky brightness is measured in astronomical magnitudes in the V-band, abbreviated as "mags". The V-band measures mostly green light, omitting purple through ultraviolet and orange through infrared. The magnitude scale is a logarithmic scale. A difference of 5 magnitudes corresponds to a 100x difference in brightness. Lower values (smaller or more negative) are brighter. Further information on astronomical magnitudes can be found on this Sky and Telescope webpage. Data images are shown in false color, with yellow, red, and white corresponding to brighter sky and blue, purple and black corresponding to darker sky.A more detailed explanation is available.
| Category | Details | Image |
|---|---|---|
| Park | DEVA |
 Narrative: Evening begins calm, then wind picks up to steady 15 mph, gusting to 24 by end of 3rd set. Battery dies during 4th set. Seeing poor, transparency good. Some haziness. Very dark, low airglow, but hard to see faint stars. Gegenschein easily visible near Regulus. Difficult visual observing under windy, low humidity conditions. Las Vegas light dome extends to 30 degrees above horizon, Victorville/Hesperia/San Bernardino to 10 degrees. Lights of Furnace Creek airport seen, but glare minimal. Zodiacal light strong in 1st and 2nd data sets.
|
| Site Name | Nevares | |
| Longitude | -116.84501 | |
| Latitude | 36.50846 | |
| Elevation (m) | 145 | |
| Date (UT) | February 22, 2006 | |
| Time Start (UT) | 3:53:56 | |
| Data Quality | Excellent | |
| Equipment | SBIG 50mm f/2 6084 | |
| Observers | D.Duriscoe | |
| Air Temp (°F) | 59 | |
| Rel Humid (%) | 10 | |
| Wind Sp (mph) | 4 | |
| CCD Temp (°C) | -20 | |
| Exp (seconds) | 12 | |
| Bortle Class | 3 | |
| ZLM | 6.7 |
| Data Set Number | Time (UT) | Extinction Coefficient (mag/air-mass) |
Std Err Y Extinction Stars (mags) |
Zenith (mag/sq arc-sec) |
Whole Sky (mags) |
Sky Above 20° Altitude (mags) |
Brightest (mag/sq arc-sec) |
Darkest (mag/sq arc-sec) |
Links to Sky Maps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-Start End |
3:53:56 4:11:16 |
0.189 |
0.40 |
21.74 21.50 |
-6.85 |
-6.32 |
20.27 |
22.20 |
PAN HEMI |
| 2-Start End |
4:51:51 5:09:16 |
0.203 |
0.041 |
21.61 21.64 |
-6.80 |
-6.26 |
20.22 |
22.24 |
PAN HEMI |
| 3-Start End |
5:49:51 6:07:12 |
0.194 |
0.042 |
21.82 21.87 |
-6.78 |
-6.24 |
20.25 |
22.27 |
PAN HEMI |
| 4-Start End |
6:47:46 |
|
|
21.94 |
|
|
|
|
| City | Distance (km) |
Azimuth | 1st Data Set Brightness (mags) |
Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pahrump, NV | 79 | 110.7 | -0.80 |
 |
| Las Vegas, NV | 149 | 102.5 | ||
| Victorville, CA | 225 | 191.5 | -2.27 | |
| Los Angeles, CA | 302 | 208.6 | ||
| Ridgecrest, CA | 122 | 217.3 | ||
| Total | -2.87 |