Winchester named among best places to watch fireworks in the UK

Research from LotteryCritic.com has revealed that Winchester ranks among the 15 best places in the UK for this.

It came in third on that list, only being beaten out by places like St David's in Pembrokeshire and Truro in Cornwall.

This was based on factors involving light pollution, which are the Bortle scale, SQM reading and artificial brightness, to create a Fireworks Visibility score.

Firework visibility is great in a few Sussex locations (PA) (Image: PA)

The Bortle scale is a classification system which uses astronomical observations to measure light pollution. The scale runs from 1 (darkest - best for watching fireworks) to 9 (worst- - difficult to watch fireworks).

Meanwhile, SQM (Sky Quality Meter) is an instrument used to give a reading on the luminance of the night sky. A rating of 16.00, is the lowest and therefore the brightest sky. At the other end 22.00 is the highest and thus darkest.

Finally, artificial brightness measures sky brightness against natural brightness, which is set at 174 µcd/m2. A rating higher than 3,000 µcd/m2 is known as ‘Very high light intensity’ and at this level the human eye does not need to adapt to the dark to see.

A link to the research can be found at the link here.

Best places to watch fireworks displays in the UK

1. St David's, Pembrokeshire - 74.40 (fireworks visibility score out of 100)
2. Uckfield, East Sussex - 73.80
3. Truro, Cornwall - 73.50
4. Wells, Somerset - 73.20
5. Kendal, Cumbria - 72.90
6. Ripon, North Yorkshire - 71.40
7. Winchester, Hampshire - 71.10
8. Eastbourne, East Sussex - 70.80
9. Haverhill, Suffolk - 70.80
10. Elgin, Moray - 70.20
11. Chippenham, Wiltshire - 69.88
12. Ely, Cambridgeshire - 69.88
13. Salisbury, Wiltshire - 69.58
14. Folkestone, Kent - 68.98
15. Hastings, East Sussex - 68.68