# Measuring light



## MacFan (Jul 30, 2006)

After learning about measuring light via LUX at the meeting, I looked up meters online. Apparently you really want a PAR meter for the best accuracy. The speaker at the meeting said you could measure LUX and convert but it only works if you know your exact bulb type as the conversion varies from bulb to bulb. Here is an article on the topic.

If the club still has money it wants to spend, this might be a good toy to buy and loan out to members. I wrote to their tech support to ask which model we should use as their website assumes you know what you're doing. They recommended the MQ-200 in the attached brochure (which isn't even on their site.) $349 seems a little steep for something I would only use occasionally, but would be cool if we could borrow it from the club to measure our tanks lighting output.

I also found this article on spectrometers which let you see the color spectrum of a light source. It's not available from the sources they mention anymore, but is available at various places online for around $40. I might actually buy one of these. It would be cool to compare light sources.

Michael


----------

