Sky background magnitude

@jawknee

2 years ago I wondered the same question and i have solved my doubt doing this.

I bought a SQM - L meter (with the narrow 20 degree lense), measure the entire portion of the sky where i'm planning to image and along which the object is going to move, than put the average or any other SQM value into this file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12PHRpiOoUfQuhpJMR_7-ZNJjo1vTRYNi/view?usp=sharing

Cheers 

@jawknee No there is no such way. Knowing that would require knowledge of the telescope, filters and camera to a level that goes beyond what many people can provide about their own system. Even weather conditions like humidity, transparency and high clouds are influencing this. There are several online resources where you can lookup approximate light pollution levels for your location like

https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/

@wvreeven Thanks!

@ippiu Thanks! I'll look into that. 

@jawknee

Hi Jean,

You can use sharpcap pro to do this. The sensor analysis stores the response of your camera and the smart histogram will allow you to define optimum exposure and gain depending on you sky background. It's really quite good and useful too.