Bortle Brigade – Collecting Sky Quality Data

Join the Bortle Brigade for our inaugural meetings, where citizen science meets the stars. Over three late-night sessions, you’ll become part of a growing community of dark sky advocates working to measure, understand, and preserve the natural darkness above us. This first meeting is in the small hours of Friday, July 9th at midnight (technically the 10th) at the North Beach County Park parking lot.

In each roughly one-hour session, you will:

• Meet the Sky Quality Meter (SQM) — a pocket-sized instrument that measures how bright (or how beautifully dark) the night sky really is. We’ll walk through how it works and how to use it.
• Take your own readings — after a hands-on demonstration, you’ll operate the meter yourself and record real measurements of the sky overhead.
• Decode the Bortle Scale — discover how your readings translate into a location’s Bortle Score, the standard astronomers use to rate light pollution from pristine dark skies to brightly lit city centers.
• See why it matters — learn what dark sky advocates do with this data: tracking light pollution over time, guiding policy and lighting decisions, identifying and protecting dark sky sites, and reconnecting communities with the night.
• If weather doesn’t cooperate we’ll do everything but actually take the readings.

No experience or equipment required, just curiosity and a willingness to stay up a little past your bedtime. Come find out how a single reading from your backyard becomes part of a bigger picture in the fight to keep our skies dark.

Dress for the weather and let your eyes adjust. The stars are waiting!