You have to become comfortable with spreading light over an area rather than a point source as a magnitude. You do this already when dealing with surface brightness. Astronomers, who have to quantify everything or they are not happy, picked the square arc-second (rather than say, a square arc-minute which would be spreading it kinda thin). Jack ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Sikes" <KGSikes@xxxxxxx> To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 8:27 PM Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: SQM readings Another good site explaining magnitudes per square arc-second http://www.nightwise.org/magnitudes.htm Ken Sikes ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Argenziano" <pargenz@xxxxxxx> To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 8:19 PM Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: SQM readings Ken, a Sky Quality Meter measures the sky darkness in magnitudes per square arc-second. More info here on the manufacturers website: http://unihedron.com/projects/darksky/ Peter ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ken Reeves" <kreeves@xxxxxxxxx> To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 8:08 PM Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: SQM readings Pardon my ignorance, but what is an SQM and what is the scale of it? Ken Reeves -- See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please send personal replies to the author, not the list.