Assessing the night-sky brightness of the Maltese islands

Abstract

Artificial lighting is meant to provide good visibility during the night. Bad practices in illumination, however, have led to excess light being emitted into the atmosphere, causing artificial sky-glow. Despite the ever increasing agreement among scientists that light pollution has adverse effects on ecology and even human health (besides an obvious impact on astronomical observations), oftentimes authorities are still not proactive in considering light pollution as a serious issue that merits urgent mitigation. This project has involved the quantification of night-sky brightness levels, by taking in-situ measurements all over Malta, Gozo Comino. It presents a detailed ground-based night sky brightness map for the Maltese Islands - the first of its kind. This map reveals that the night-sky brightness over the Maltese Archipelago is remarkably high, and the Milky Way should be visible in less than 13% of the country.