Light Pollution Measurement at Selected Sites of Peninsular Malaysia on 9th of June 2018

Abstract

Abstract Light pollution is regarded as one of environmental issues, although it is often neglected by vast majority of us. It has severe impacts on human health & nocturnal creatures. Due to that, measurement of light pollution is crucial as it serves as an indicator on how polluted our sky. The objective of this paper is to compare light pollution measurement at designated sites. For this paper, we choose four (4) stationary sites that are located according to cardinal directions i.e. Selangor Observatory (BCS), Kuala Lipis (LPS), Besut (BST) and Langkawi National Observatory (ONL). All sites were installed Sky Quality Meter (LU-DL type). The measurement is in magnitude per arc second (mpsas) or abbreviated as mag/arcsec2 unit. The higher the measurement value indicates the less polluted sky. We found that 9th of June 2018 was identified as best day for the four (4) sites based on the average of sky magnitude along night. The less polluted site is LPS site with 21.15 mag/arcsec2 and the worst site is BST with 19.58 mag/arcsec2. Measurement of light pollution in the long run is vital in order to have a reliable dataset and for protection of the night sky brightness.