Measurements of night sky brightness were carried out at selected places in Venezuela and Italy by means of a simple visual photometer. Thanks to earlier sky brightness maps of the italian territory, the light pollution increase over 25 years has been estimated at the sites tested. Venezuela shows lower levels of light pollution for a given population. Spectra from heavily polluted sites show that Mercury and High Pressure Sodium lamps are the main sources that contaminate the night sky.
Acknowledgements
I am profoundly indebted to V. Millucci, A. Marchini, L. Ravenni, S. Bottari, G. Quarra, P. Camaiti, R. Garosi, S. Donati, A. Pifferi and D. Herrera for their help and collaboration during the observing campaign.
Copyright The European Southern Observatory (ESO)