The astronomical observatory of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid will monitor the night sky brightness during the 2012 Earth Hour on saturday 31st March. They will check whether the planned switch off will decrease the brightness of Madrid sky.

The brightest lights that we distinguish on the nocturnal pictures of Madrid taken from the International Space Station (ISS) are black spots of Light Pollution. The last picture of Madrid at night ISS030-E-82053 on the NASA repository) has an extremely good resolution. It was obtained the last February 12 from ISS at an altitude around 400 km.

By comparing with previous night shots of Madrid at night, some changes in illumination are being detected. Some of them are good news since some road lights were switch off, may be due to the economical crisis. Unfortunately the new bright spots are a clear indication that people are not aware of this environmental problem.

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