New to astronomy I live in light polluted Southern California. I have had a great deal of trouble finding constellations from my home. When viewing from moderately dark sites I do better be I wanted to quantify my situation. I purchased the meter so that I can understand my situation, NELM 3.3, and when I get to a dark site I can quantify the improvements. I have seen maps marked with magnitudes to help determine these values. I found that I could not find enough stars to recognize the patterns. The meter helped me understand why. The meter works but could use some interface improvements. The guard on the button makes the button hard to push and the readout is on the same side of the unit as the detector, hence, one can not watch it work.