Ligh Pollution Map (USA)

For all the foreign visitors in the forum (mostly from the USA), I decided to do an entry with the pollution maps, I often will do some entries in english for you.

Here you have some pollution maps and a Dark Sky finder:

Pay Attention! The map runs with Firefox and Internet Explorer, but not with Chrome.

Dark Sky Finder and Pollution Map (Google Maps)

Here, you have the light pollution map in the same colors that the other maps include:

- White color means that the sky is from a city center, you can see, in the best nights maybe 30-50 stars, the visual limiting magnitude is about 2-3. The sky is extremely polluted.

- Pink color means that the location has a typical city sky, you can see in the best nights 80-100 stars, the visual limiting magnitude is about 4. You can see the form of many constellations. Sky is so polluted. 

- Red color means that the location has a polluted sky, but you can start seeing the suplementary stars (the stars that not fit in the constellation line). Limiting magnitude is about 4,5. We can start with the telescope observation. You can see 100 to 200 stars.

- Orange color means that the location has a noticeably light pollution but you can start seeing dark zones in the sky, you can't see the Milky Way. Visual limiting magnitude is near to 4.8. You can see 200 to 250 stars.

- Yellow color means that the light pollution is descending, you can see Milky Way at the zenith, it's a typical village sky, you can see 250 to 500 stars. Limiting magnitude is from 5,1 to 5,8 in the best places. 

- Green color means a typical dark sky. You can always see Milky Way, but with no details. Ligh pollution is so little and the visual limiting magnitude is from 6 to 6,3 

- Cyan and blue color means that the pollution is only visible in some parts of the sky, you can start seeing a little detail on Milky Way, you can see in a good day the Zodiacal Light (or gegenschein).

- Dark blue: means that there isn't pollution, only in dispersed zones of the sky. You can see 3000 stars, Milky Way is always visible with detail, gegenschein is always visible, limiting magnitude is 6,8 - 7. 

- Black: There isn't any pollution, you can reach 5000 stars, Milky Way has a lot of detail and you can see it's nebulas, gegenschein is fairly visible, Milky Way can project shadows in the ground. Limiting magnitude is over 7.


In the map you also have a lot of markers in each place. Each marker contains some information and details about the place.

I think is the best map for the USA that you can find, because it's complete (all the geography), and it has a lot of information in the markers, (like a half of the map is covered by information markers).

Hope you liked it, I will post some entries in english in the future.

Don't forget to comment!

Thanks to GoogleMapsMania!