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In the November issue of Sky and Telescope-page 130-it suggests that if you can see two stars inside the great square of Pegasus you are reaching visual magnitude of 4.6.
Guess what, I can't usually see any stars within the Great Square at all from my home so I suppose my suburb is pretty badly light polluted at least to the North
Earlier this year my son did a senior geography (Year 11) project for school where he counted the number of stars visible in the Southern Cross from various locations across Sydney and used that as a measure of the light pollution in various suburbs.
Anyway from our backyard he could see a 5.31 magnitude star (HR4830) which I suppose must be considered the limiting magnitude.
On the other hand all I could see -on the same night-was Epsilon Crux -which is the 3.59 magnitude star that Aragorn also refers to-even with my glasses on.
So age and visual acuity have quite a bit to do with limiting magnitude. I suppose that CCD measurement of stellar magnitudes may be more repeatable and reliable.
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