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Dr. Andreas Hänel info@lichtverschmutzung.de

In the meantime data from several satellites from the years 1992 to 2003 have been compiles. These data are available through the www and have been adapted by us:
 

1992 (c) A. Hänel	1997 (c) A. Hänel
2000 (c) A. Hänel	2002 (c) A. Hänel

This map shows the difference between 2002 and 1993: 

Yellow means an increase of upward light between 1993 and 2002, red an even higher increase. Pink und blue shows a decrease. The decrease in some regions of the Netherlands can be explained with the enormous areas of illuminated greenhouses, that are allowed to switched on only during certain time, in 1993 they were swithced on, but in 2002 off. Why the light around London has been decreased is unknown, it might be an instrumental effect.

Pixel size is 0,5', corresponding to  0,6 km x 1 km in central Europe.
These maps show only the upward lights, that the satellites measure.
In fact, light is scattered in the atmosphere, which results in the fact that fainter stars are not visible. This has been modelled in the first world atlas of light pollution by Pierantonio Cinzano, calibrated in sky background brightness in mag/arcsec².

The maps of Frederic Tapissier have a high resolution, but they are based on data for cities and commercial areas, to which he has attributed a certain brightness, and afterwards smeared to model light propagation in the atmosphere.

Light pollution map for central Europe

For GoogleEarth
It is problematic to overlay streets , towns and their names for copyright reasons. But it is possible to overlay the maps onto the GoogleEarth maps, if GoogleEarth is installed on the PC:

• the Tapissier maps for some regions in France
• the Cinzano data (for 1997) for Europe
• Sky background brightness in Vmag/arcsec (from Cinzano) for central Europe, This can be compared with brightness measurements made with the Sky Quality Meter. The maps were taken from www.lightpollution.it, there can also be found a more detailed description (white >21.5, green 21-21.5, dark green 20.5-21, kaki 20-20.5, yellow 19.5-20, dark yellow 19-19.5, pink 18.5-19, orange 18-18.5, maroon 17.5-18, dark red <17.5 mag/arcsec²).
• the 2002-DMSP-satellite-data (1.2 MB)
• the difference of the DMSP satellite data from 2002-1993 (1.4 MB), the colour scale is described in more deatil above!