Light Pollution: how does it affect you?

EMPOWERTORCH

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Coalville, Leicestershire, England
Here in England light pollution is becoming a problem to astronomers and torchaholics alike!
I find that in high light pollution areas in rural settings I have to use a more powerful torch than I would in a low light pollution area!
The stark difference of the darkness in Snowdonia compared to the orange skies of the Midlands made me able to benefit from single-LED torches where I would use a Luxeon 5W in polluted areas.
Has anyone seen the pictures publised in Saturday's "Daily Mail"?
This is a result of councils using bigger bulbs in taller lamp posts and more bulbs than ever before. Also, the change frtom Low pressure Sodium to High pressure Sodium bulbs means that the pollution is spread over a wider spectrum!
Is it the same in urban areas of America or other countries?
 

x-ray

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uklp.gif


You may find these links interesting:

Link 1

Link 2
 

paulr

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It is awful here. It bugs me even when hiking at night, not particularly trying to stargaze. Trying to seriously look at the sky is very difficult.

Here's another site about it: www.darksky.org
 

sunspot

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I live in a very rural location without street lighting for many miles. I have no problem viewing the night sky. I saw the last two comets with the naked eye.
I can see a glow on the horizon coming from Birmingham, Alabama 45 miles away but it is not a distraction.
I have a low pressure sodium lamp for outside lighting.
 

paulr

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I hope your outdoor light is shielded so it doesn't spill upwards.
 

chamenos

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the night sky over here is always a shade of orange from the streetlamps that stay on all night. seldom see any stars, if ever.
 

Greta

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We have no street lights here except in the immediate downtown area which consists of maybe two blocks... small blocks, not city blocks. The closest "big city" is 150 miles away. I can see just about any star you wanna name on just about any given night. The Milky Way is incredible! And I've seen every comet, lunar eclipse, planetary alignment and meteor shower that has come through here in the past 8 years.. all with the naked eye, out my back door.
 

Brock

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Green Bay, WI USA
They finally started putting in those reflected down streetlights around here. I am told the regular low-sodium streetlights are 180w, the ones focused down at about 60 degree are only 80w. So they save power, are actually brighter under the light and don't irritate you as you drive up to them.

Fortunately I live about 20 miles out of Green Bay, the closest streetlight is at a corner about 4 miles from our house. A couple of people do have personal ones near us, but they aren't too bad, and there aren't to many of them.

It is a pet peeve of mine, to leave lights on that are unnecessary though, causing light pollution. If anyone has every been at the top of Haleakala or Mauna Loa at night can really appreciate how Hawaii has taken light pollution seriously. I am sure the astronomers would like more but at least it is taken in to consideration there.
 

Lurker

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I also support controlling light pollution and have reduced it on my property by installing full cut-off lighting and motion-sensors for outdoor lighting. I can see most major constellations from my home on the edge of a medium-sized city in the US, but not the milky-way, satellites or other faint interesting objects. I cannot ever see the "little dipper" (Ursa Minor) and rarely the "big dipper" as the northern sky is the most polluted where I live.

I find the rural night sky to be spectacular, but haven't had a good view in years. Someday I would like to travel to a remote desert location just to see the night sky. I think it is a shame that we carelessly pollute the night sky for no benefit.
 

lemlux

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The growing Greater San Diego community has made half-hearted efforts over the decades to concentrate on downward facing low pressure sodium street lighting in many areas. The impetus of this trend were the pleadings of the nearby Mt. Palomar observatory.

My impression is that the lights have been getting brighter over the last decade as people feel more at risk when illuminated the low pressure sodium color than they do when under brighter lighting. Landlords want their tenants / clientele to feel comfortable at night.

I live in a built up area within sight of the coast, and rarely see stars well at home. I'll go camping one hour east of here above the 5000' level if I want to see stars. We do this each time a meteor shower comes around.
 

Chris M.

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It`s bad here, especially on cloudy nights. The sky just turns the colour of orangeade at the slightest hint of cloudcover.

This photo was taken, admittedly with an extended exposure, in the middle of the night when it was cloudy. The little solar powered lights at the bottom cast only a subtle glow that`s usually drowned out by good moonlight. Notice the bright orange patches of sky visible through the gaps in the trees at the top left and right. It almost looks like daylight, just daylight on Mars /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Click here to view - 1024x768 sized

See what I mean? Like I said, that`s an extended exposure (30 seconds at F2.1, ISO-800) but surely I shouldn`t be able to take photos that clear at midnight, should I?


The UK used to be mainly lit by low pressure sodium lamps, mostly with badly designed "bucket reflector" lanterns that threw as much light up as they did down. But at least astronomers could kind of filter out the two narrowband lines in the LPS emission spectrum making things a little clearer. Recently the LPS lanterns have been dissapearing in favor of high pressure types that are significantly brighter with a more broad emission spectrum too - not easilly filterable at all. OK, the lanterns are better designed so the light just goes down where it`s meant to, but the increased brightness, sometimes of a whole order of magnitude, still reflects from roads, vehicles and houses so I`d guess the light pollution isn`t getting any better.
The current popularity with illuminating building facades and monuments doewsn`t help either. Many schemes are badly designed and spill too much light onto the clouds, though there have been design awards and initiatives to encourage better setups - and after all it is nice to see in most cases.

Don`t get me wrong - I like to see the government thinking of our safety and making the streets better lit. But I do enjoy being able to see the stars, and I do enjoy being able to use some of my flashlights to find my way around after dark, without people looking at me funny because there`s a whacking great 250 watt HPS streetlight above my head. Additionally I do wish I could turn the lamp off over the road during the Festive season so my lights would look better /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif


I was thinking the other night. What on earth must the suburban world have looked after dark during the Blitz when blackouts were enforced? Putting the threat of airborne invasions aside, I kind of think it must have been rather nice!


/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif
 

Al_Havemann

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New York City
It really is a shame isn't it?. I reflect on how back in 1965 I had a fair sized observatory in my yard with a home built 8" reflector, a fairly large instrument in it's time. The skies were pretty dark and I could see just about anything with that scope. Now I have a 12.5" reflector and a 3.5" Takahashi Sky 90 APO refractor and frankly, the 3.5" is just about as good as the 12" since the only things worth observing are the Moon and planets. In fact, the 3.5" is usually better for planetary since it's less effected by light pollution.

Last December, my wife and I took a mid-winter vacation and I took along the 3.5" telescope. We drove to Key West and stayed overnight at a B&B in one keys. I sat on the beach with the scope in skies that were so dark that I could have been in a planetarium. The stars were brilliant points of light and I could see details in nebula that couldn't be seen in NJ at all because of light pollution. It makes me sad to think what's been lost. I could see more from that beach with a little 3.5" scope than I could at home with the 12 inch.

I've been an amateur astronomer for many years and a member of Dark-Skies as well. Nothing we've done has helped - the light pollution and smog just get worse every year.

Where I live the sky glow is so bright that I hardly ever really need a flashlight to move around outside. Every strip mall, shopping center, gas station, etc. seems bent on having their light aimed straight up. Can't talk to them about it either!, they don't want to hear it and won't listen. Nothing seems to help.

In 1965, I could see twice as much with an 8" telescope as I can today with the 12.5". I sometimes feel that trying to control light pollution here is like trying to obey the 65mph speed limit on the Garden State Parkway, a practice that'll just get you rammed in the a** from behind by some moron in an SUV running 85 or 90 who's pissed that you have the gall to be in front of him.

Al
 

The_LED_Museum

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Federal Way WA. USA
I live smack in the middle of a big city, and streetlights here are these clusters of milky glass balls with naked HPS bulbs in each ball. Three balls per stalk, and they're *everywhere*.

I think the faintest objects I can see on a good night are right around magnitude 0 or -1 or thereabouts. So forget about most satellites, most planets (other than Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), all nebulae, most constellations, most meteor showers, or most comets. Even a 11+ milliwatt green laser is too dim to get a spot on most clouds. (I'm still waiting for that 50mW greenie from SCE so we'll see if THAT works!) Everything glows that vomity yellow/amber color, characteristic of sodium bulbs. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

I can make out Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) but forget about that binary stellar system in the handle. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif
 

PhotonBoy

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We're lucky here in rural Nova Scotia. Low light and air pollution. At night you can seen the tilted band of stars of the Milky Way from horizon to horizon. Like Sasha, we get to see comets and meteors at night. Plus, we're surrounded by green trees. You can take the mosquitoes though -- we'll be getting lots of those in a couple of weeks.
 

CNC Dan

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boston area
[ QUOTE ]
Sasha said:
We have no street lights here except in the immediate downtown area which consists of maybe two blocks... small blocks, not city blocks. The closest "big city" is 150 miles away. I can see just about any star you wanna name on just about any given night. The Milky Way is incredible! And I've seen every comet, lunar eclipse, planetary alignment and meteor shower that has come through here in the past 8 years.. all with the naked eye, out my back door.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm going to be in the Tucson area later this week and I look forward to seeing stars again. How far away from Tucson will I need to be to get good stars?
 

Greta

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You shouldn't have to go very far at all. Most of the lights are within the city itself. Within perhaps only a couple miles radius? ... The "burbs" tend to be like it is here... no street lights.
 

PhotonBoy

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Never been to Arizona (closest was Carlsbad Caverns, NM), but I understand it's quite dry, so there should be no clouds or humidity in the air to carry the light pollution for long distances as it does in the East. Once the city is over the horizon, it should be quite dark, I'd think.
 
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