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Welcome to Darkness 4 All, a blog about my research in light pollution... Andy

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Arrival in Kiruna

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...so I made it across the polar circle yesterday! This is my third time in Lapland: During parental leave in 2014 we drove to North Cape with our camper van in summer to see the midnight sun. Back then I fell in love with this part of the world. In 2016 we returned for a winter holiday in Ivalo, Finland. I started to like the snow as well (I was more a hot desert type of person). Anyway two stop-overs and I am in Kiruna, North Sweden. A mining town with lots of lights. I picked up luggage and rental car within 15 mins and the walk from airplane to parking lot is 3 mins. this is a relaxing airport. Everything seems very bright. I took some illuminance measurements and they were OK between 10lx and 55lx. So how bright is the night sky? First SQM reading near airport was 19.3 mag/arcsec^2 in downtown Kiruna (near the Sami church) it was 17.7 mag/arcsec^2. There were no visible clouds that time. Kiruna from above No way you can mix up flights here...only one aircraft ...
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Last day in Kilpisjärvi

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The Kilpisjärvi biological station in winter is a nice place for a stay. It is not busy at all, but still you meet some other researchers to discuss new ideas. It is well equipped (with stuff like sleighs, snow shoes and ski) and has an own cantine that serves breakfast and dinner. We had nice food here including the very local reindeer meat dish. The station at foot of mount Saana Stuff arctic researchers need The station is famous for the research on lemmings. They are part of the logo, you can read an article in the hallway and look at (touch?) some lemming fur. Logo of the biological station Lemmings on Nature cover Lemmings on poster On the last day in Kilpisjärvi we don't have to drill holes anymore. We can inspect data, take down our installed measurement devices and start to pack. We watch our lake physicist friends unpack their ROV ( remotely operated underwater vehicle ) a nice device that is built to skate (!) just under the ice taking measu...
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SQM Roadrunner is working

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An important tool is the SQM roadrunner system. The Sky Quality Meter "SQM" by the Canadian manufacturer Unihedron is a small photometer that measures the night sky brightness. It has become the most widespread device for world-wide light pollution studies. You can get a handheld SQM and participate by uploading your data to websites like Globe at Night . The roadrunner system links an SQM (LU version) with a GPS - so you can move around and automatically track your position and the sky brightness. One can use any vehicle for that, researchers used cars or bicycles . First SQM road run south of Berlin The obstacles were driver installation, that the software ( infos in this pdf ) is in Spanish and the mounting. As I do not know the car I simply used a standard SQM housing and attached it to a base I found in my garage using tools I found in the garage ;) Now I can  strap it on the roof of the car. Some impressions below SQM in housing with base On r...
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