Aurelia presented at the 2nd European Workshop on Artificial Nighttime Light Remote Sensing, held by ESA at ESRIN in Frascati from 12 to 15 October 2026. We introduced our aerial platforms, from tethered aerostats to balloon-borne payloads, and how they can be used to measure artificial nighttime light and skyglow at intermediate altitudes: collecting vertical profiles of night-sky radiance, characterizing how light propagates through the lower atmosphere, and providing reference measurements that bridge ground-based networks and satellite observations.

The workshop is intended to help ESA shape future research, technology developments, and a roadmap towards missions with nighttime optical capabilities and gather the community studying the impacts of artificial light on ecosystems, human health, and society. It was the right setting to discuss where aerial platforms can fill the gaps in today’s observing system, and we look forward to developing these ideas further with the partners we met in Frascati.