This is a sky quality meter that is located at our central MN lake place. More details on the meter can be found here: http://www.unihedron.com/projects/sqm-lu-dl/ It is battery operated and collects data every minute and saves the data locally that can be downloaded every few months in a simple data file that can be used for scientific research.
The “Sky Quality Meter” measures the brightness of the night sky in magnitudes per square arcsecond. I am collecting the data as part of a science committee for the MN non profit Starry Skies North: https://starryskiesnorth.org/, a regional organization of Darksy.org, formerly the International Darksky Association (IDA).
The first winter it was located on the lake side attached to a swingset as shown in the first picture below, not perfect but worked. It was moved to a more permanent location with access to more open skies for better measurements as shown in the third picture below.
Inserted into all weather case and ready to deploy in the field:
