Night Sky Brightness
at Cerro Pachon

Alistair Walker, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory

INTRODUCTION

The growth of the population centers in the vicinity of Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachon (La Serena-Coquimbo, Vicuna, Andacollo, Ovalle), and the rapid growth of the coastal region as a center of tourism, has caused concern that poor lighting-control practices could threaten the dark skies at the observatories in the decades to come. Many of the issues are illustrated (text in Spanish) at http://www.ctio.noao.edu/light_pollution.

Here we present models of the light pollution calculated for Cerro Pachon.