Last night was a great one for recording sky quality readings. Only one day past the new moon and it was clear and cold. Zero cloud cover, but the humidity at 65% may have affected the clarity of the sky a little bit. Temps hovered between 2 degrees above zero and 2 degrees below zero. I took readings at a variety of locations, some in areas relatively near to artificial lights and some out where there are no artificial lights at all. There was one location where I saw a low level of aurora activity on the northern horizon, along with some lights from the village of Grand Portage. This location yielded results right around 21.0 and the locations I sampled within the village of Grand Portage were between 20 and 21. My best reading of the night was 21.57 and the worst was 20.10. According to the meter manufacturer, the reading range typically falls between around 16 for bright urban skies to 22 for the darkest skies on Earth. Values in the 21-22 range indicate exceptionally dark skies.
