New Light-Pollution Maps
August 2000

New and improved light-pollution maps of the United States, made from
mosaics of visual and near- infrared satellite images, are now being worked
on. Chris Elvidge and his colleagues at the Defense Meteorological Satellite
Program (DMSP) in Bolder, Colorado are developing maps that will offer
greater resolution (to about 0.5 kilometer) than previous editions. For a
look at some of researchers, earlier work go to
http://julius.ngdc.noaa.gov:8080/production/html/BIOMASS/night.html. 
Meanwhile, Virginia amateur astronomer Bill Burton wants to collect
limiting-magnitude (LM) estimates from observing sites all over the U.S. to
correlate with the satellite imagery map. Interested observers can write to
him at bburton@usgs.gov. 
Another person who has been soliciting and collecting LM estimates
for the past few years is Steve Albers. He has sought to compare observers'
estimates with LM figure predicted for a given location by his computer
program, which uses U.S. census population data. 
By the time you read this, International Dark-Sky Association member
Forrest Hamilton member will have finished a better interface for using
Albers program via the DarkSky Finder on the IDA homepage (www.darksky.org).
Albers believes it will be possible to combine his data with those of Burton
and the DMSP team to produce the most useful and informative U.S. light
pollution map ever.