DarkSky Texas Website - SQM Reading

Developed an interactive data dashboard for DarkSky Texas that visualizes Sky Quality Meter (SQM) readings collected across Texas counties, enabling communities, researchers, and light pollution advocates to monitor night sky conditions over time.

A key contribution was mapping raw SQM readings to the Bortle Scale — translating numerical sky brightness values (measured in magnitudes per square arcsecond) into the familiar 1–9 Bortle classification, making the data immediately interpretable for both scientific users and the general public. This bridging layer turns abstract photometric readings into actionable context: whether a site qualifies as a pristine dark sky, a suburban transition zone, or a heavily light-polluted area.

The dashboard features an interactive Texas SQM station map, county-level trend charts showing how sky quality changes over time, a top-10 darkest readings leaderboard, and a manual reading submission tool for handheld SQM volunteers.

Link: https://sqm.darkskytexas.org/