Date
1 - 20 of 32
Locked Our blinding blaring world
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Roland Christen
Light and sound pollution has accelerated this century. At some point most people will not know that there are stars in the sky
Rolando
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/07/light-noise-pollution-animal-sensory-impact/638446/?utm_medium=cr&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=july/august_coverstory_actives2022&utm_term=ALL%20Active%20Subscribers%20%28Stripe%2BCDS%2BiTunes%29
Exerpt:
In 2001, the astronomer Pierantonio Cinzano and his colleagues created the first global atlas of light pollution.
They calculated that two-thirds of the world’s population lived in
light-polluted areas, where the nights were at least 10 percent brighter
than natural darkness. About 40 percent of humankind is permanently
bathed in the equivalent of perpetual moonlight, and about 25 percent
constantly experiences an artificial twilight that exceeds the
illumination of a full moon. “‘Night’ never really comes for them,” the
researchers wrote. In 2016, when the team updated the atlas,
it found that the problem had become even worse. By then, about 83
percent of people—including more than 99 percent of Americans and
Europeans—were under light-polluted skies. More than a third of
humanity, and almost 80 percent of North Americans, can no longer see
the Milky Way. “The thought of light traveling billions of years from
distant galaxies only to be washed out in the last billionth of a second
by the glow from the nearest strip mall depresses me to no end,” the visual ecologist Sönke Johnsen once wrote.
-- Roland Christen Astro-Physics |
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Very sad indeed. My neighborhood in Montana is a standard type of suburban neighborhood. It is located in Big Sky. There are 65 lots all within view of each other and the sizes range from 0.4 to about an acre in size. I am on the HOA board and we manage about 275 acres of open space and then beyond that there are neighborhoods and beyond that, the majesty of Yellowstone, the Spanish Peaks and the Gallatin Range. A few hundred feet below us is the town center which does have a glow to it. However, what is very interesting is that without much prodding, our neighborhood is pitch black at night. No one keeps their porch lights on or any other lights for that matter. We have no street lights and basically you can see when someone switches their lights on within the individual rooms within the house. I think that once you loose the view of the night sky, no one seems to give a crap. Everyone just adds to the pollution without giving it a second thought.
Now in my neighborhood in SW Florida we are at the end of the light cone and I look at a darker area between the Keys and Everglades National Park. I have lived there for about 30 years and have seen the progression of pollution imported by individuals who are building gigantic homes and are generally from the NE united states and the Midwest. Lately, New Jersey and New York has generally moved to our neighborhood in mass, not really caring what they pay for the real estate. At night they light up the houses and landscapes as if they were hotels and shopping centers. If it is a new house, they light the entire thing up including every mango and palm tree. If it was an older house, they renovate it and light up all the landscaping. Some of the individuals contribute heavily to the preservation of our native listed species, the gopher turtle and the borrowing owl. Yet, they don't have any appreciation for the night sky. So weird. Once you loose sight of the night sky (pun intended) you loose all sense of what it is supposed to look like and it seems you really don't care. I don't know what to do about it and often dream of sending out a flyer indicating that there is an astrophotographer in their midst that appreciates the night sky and wants to try and preserve it. Alternatively I think of creating a municipal service tax district and tearing down the existing street lights and installing something lower to the ground with less spillage. I have thought of speaking to City Council about the issue and outright placing restrictions on landscape lighting. I have been thinking of utilizing and excuse that we are blinding the freaking owls. No one would seem to care if I simply said, we are loosing what little we have of our night sky. Most people think that a well lit area is safer, and that is just not true in suburban areas. I am disgusted and don't quite know what to do about it except maybe leaving S. Florida and some will say good riddance, we don't need kooks complaining about dark skies. However for better or worse, we have been there for a long long time and raised our kids there. So sorry to see the differential behavior in the two areas. Basically once you lose the skies, it seems to be impossible to get them back and if you live in a dark area, I think you have a chance at preserving the skies. |
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I feel fortunate that I am able to pack all of my gear out to a Bortle 3 site that is only a 2 hour [70 mile] drive from my home. A trip out to a Bortle 2 site takes a little longer - about 4 hours. A trip up to Bortle 1 areas in and near Death Valley takes about 6 hours and is really only an option certain times of the year.
-- Dean Jacobsen Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/ |
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Kirby Collins
When we moved to New Mexico five years ago the retirement community we built in was surrounded by high desert…we got some sky glow from Albuquerque 20 miles to the northeast but with the dry air and at 5000 feet elevation it was manageable. Since then though, we’ve gotten a massive multi building Facebook data center across the highway behind us, an Amazon fulfillment center, and now an aluminum can rolling plant. So when the city widened the two lane road behind us they decided they needed street lights to enhance security. Look at the lights over the wall behind my refractor…they’ve placed these every 100-150 feet. Imaging from my back yard just got more challenging. Luckily New Mexico still has some very dark sky an hour or two southwest (down near the VLA). 
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Frank Widmann
I live on the coast half way between LA and the Bay area. The sky is fairly dark particularly out toward the ocean. We are blessed with a perpetual water shortage that has stopped all new development. People who have lived here for a while recognize the connection between the night sky and the beautiful environment. However, there are people who come here because they love the natural beauty, but they bring all the bad habits that destroyed the place they came from from. They are always the ones you see on social media asking how to kill native plants, animals and insects. They are true suburbanites. We have a strong community outreach that raises environmental awareness. I host and participate in astronomy events and post astro images with detailed explanations on local media sites. I’ve seen it turn around people’s thinking. I don’t harp on it, but I regularly point out that streetlights are an atrocity that don’t serve a useful purpose anywhere. They are the creation of utility providers who are trying to balance their generation load and maximize return on investment. They sell street lighting to suckers just like every other crap product. We are raising the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere to unprecedented levels but stupidly persist in creating light pollution. Street lighting and municipal lighting create a pervasive eyesore that reduces resistance to other forms of light pollution to a so what. It’s past time to turn the streetlights everywhere.
Frank |
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Joseph Beyer
It's really disheartening. I clearly remember climbing on my parent's roof in west Denver in the late 60s to take " star pictures" with my Brownie reflex camera. I took most of them in the winter when Orion came up over the house. It was so amazing. I'd develop the film and print the pictures myself. Of course there were star trails but they looked great to my 8 year old eyes! We lived on the far west edge of Denver and our subdivision extended 4 blocks further west. After that...nothing but undeveloped foothills and mountains. It was dark. I stopped visiting and haven't been back in more than ten years because places I grew in are completely replaced by suburban sprawl that's continuous up and down the entire front range. I'm sure the story of "progress" is the same for most people. I just laugh when I hear the people say they are passionate about the environment.
Now I'm living in Northern California fairly close to the coast. The sky is still reasonably dark over the ocean but getting more light polluted all the time. I wish we had the same restriction that Frank described but the town I live in made negotiations with the water company that placed a water pipeline from the Sierras to the coast - we'll give you the land for the pipeline if you guarantee us water in perpetuity - deal. The town will never face water restrictions because of the deal. Insane. As a result there's construction everywhere it's possible to squeeze a residence. The big thing is outdoor lighting. Install up lights on all the trees for dramatic effect. When I walk around the neighborhood at night and no one's around to see the dramatic landscapes because they're all inside watching TV! Humans seem to be innately bothered by the absence of light. I once read a story about the Northridge earthquake in Southern California. The quake was so powerful that it substantially disrupted electricity grid and made large areas completely dark. People actually thought the earthquake had effected the night sky because it was so bright. Go figure. |
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Roland Christen
he big thing is outdoor lighting. Install up lights on all the trees for dramatic effect. When I walk around the neighborhood at night and no one's around to see the dramatic landscapes because they're all inside watching TV! I have to laugh, but you're absolutely right. Nobody is out these days for an evening stroll. We used to walk at night in our neighborhood which has no street lights. It was easy to see where we were going because out eyes got dark adapted. But then the association promoted porch lights to be on, ostensibly for safety reasons. So now there are lots of glaring lights which doesn't help to see the roadway. And lots of shadows behind the bushes on the lawns. Now nobody walks the streets in our neighborhood. And of course there is a bright orange sky glow thanks to the huge stripmalls about a mile away. No Milky Way and only a few bright stars.
Roland
-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Beyer <jcbeyer2001@...> To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Sent: Mon, Jun 13, 2022 10:05 pm Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Our blinding blaring world It's really disheartening. I clearly remember climbing on my parent's roof in west Denver in the late 60s to take " star pictures" with my Brownie reflex camera. I took most of them in the winter when Orion came up over the house. It was so amazing. I'd develop the film and print the pictures myself. Of course there were star trails but they looked great to my 8 year old eyes! We lived on the far west edge of Denver and our subdivision extended 4 blocks further west. After that...nothing but undeveloped foothills and mountains. It was dark. I stopped visiting and haven't been back in more than ten years because places I grew in are completely replaced by suburban sprawl that's continuous up and down the entire front range. I'm sure the story of "progress" is the same for most people. I just laugh when I hear the people say they are passionate about the environment.
Now I'm living in Northern California fairly close to the coast. The sky is still reasonably dark over the ocean but getting more light polluted all the time. I wish we had the same restriction that Frank described but the town I live in made negotiations with the water company that placed a water pipeline from the Sierras to the coast - we'll give you the land for the pipeline if you guarantee us water in perpetuity - deal. The town will never face water restrictions because of the deal. Insane. As a result there's construction everywhere it's possible to squeeze a residence. The big thing is outdoor lighting. Install up lights on all the trees for dramatic effect. When I walk around the neighborhood at night and no one's around to see the dramatic landscapes because they're all inside watching TV! Humans seem to be innately bothered by the absence of light. I once read a story about the Northridge earthquake in Southern California. The quake was so powerful that it substantially disrupted electricity grid and made large areas completely dark. People actually thought the earthquake had effected the night sky because it was so bright. Go figure. -- Roland Christen Astro-Physics |
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Jim H
Here are a few thoughts on how to help reduce lighting. Anyone know of others? Thanks Jim
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ap@CaptivePhotons.com
On Tue, Jun 14, 2022 at 07:17 AM, Jim H wrote:
Here are a few thoughts on how to help reduce lighting.The problem (or maybe I should say my frustration with) many of these is that they rely on advocacy, and at least here in Florida the public generally WANTS daylight at midnight, and elected officials in both government and perhaps worse home owners groups go along, so it just gets brighter and brighter. Are there laws and regulations on the books that one can use? Something with actual teeth, to say "you do not comply with X.Y.Z and must change or you may be fined"? Something to stop the (fed? state?) from continuing to light huge swaths of the everglades by lighting miles of Alligator Alley with street lights? I applaud public outreach and advocacy, don't get me wrong. But the up-lighting, grotesquely bright street lights in front of my house are not going away unless there is actually a law against it -- too many old farts who otherwise can't venture outside after dusk, claiming it is a "safety" issue to which the HOA rushes to install ever more and brighter lights. And really -- who needs lights on an interstate in the middle of the literal Everglades swamp? I'm still surprised those are legal, this is the same area building miles of animal tunnels and other accommodations to protect wildlife, but blinding anything flying or moving at night. We need lawyers, sadly. Linwood |
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We need a listed species besides the sea turtle that does not like light. If we could find one, the that would turn the tide.
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Thomas Swann
Species: Astronomer
Status: Endangered
On 6/14/2022 1:35 PM, Emilio J. Robau,
P.E. wrote:
We need a listed species besides the sea turtle that does not like light. If we could find one, the that would turn the tide.
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ap@CaptivePhotons.com
On Tue, Jun 14, 2022 at 10:16 AM, Thomas Swann wrote:
We just need to declare that we are fish. (Just google "California court rules a bumble bee is a fish", as you can't make this stuff up to be more strange than reality). |
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Frank Widmann
One useful tool in combating light pollution is the concept of light trespass. The county I live in has a requirement that all lights be shielded to prevent intrusion beyond the property line. Why should somebody else’s questionable taste and silly phobias be allowed to interfere with my enjoyment of my property? If there is one thing even light polluters can understand, it is property rights.
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Frank On Jun 14, 2022, at 6:18 AM, ap@... wrote:
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Of all the things that can be advocated, the one with the highest probability of success would be to try to encourage communities to use shielded light fixtures. This might not reverse the damage that has already been done, but it might be able to stop it from getting worse.
A good example of this is Wimberley Texas. The Texas Hill Country is famous for having some very dark skies, and that is still true in some areas. Wimberley is a wonderful town to visit, and as you drive into town you will see signs posted on the roads claiming that Wimberley is recognized by the International Dark Sky Association as being very dark sky friendly. The city has enacted some pretty strict measures to minimize or reduce light pollution, but it may be too little, too late in their case. If you look at a Bortle map of this part of the state. Wimberley is barely better than a suburban location. Now, Roland's and Marj's vacation home in Hawaii (in the upper left quadrant in the bottom screen shot), They have still got some pretty dark skies. Mike  
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thefamily90 Phillips
I am lucky in that our beach house is located close enough to the ocean that if you look towards England there’s not a whole lot of light pollution in that direction. Bortle 4. If you turn around and look toward the city lights are blazing away.
Jim
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io> on behalf of M Hambrick <mhambrick563@...>
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2022 7:39:17 PM To: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io> Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Our blinding blaring world Of all the things that can be advocated, the one with the highest probability of success would be to try to encourage communities to use shielded light fixtures. This might not reverse the damage that has already been done, but it might be able to stop
it from getting worse.
A good example of this is Wimberley Texas. The Texas Hill Country is famous for having some very dark skies, and that is still true in some areas. Wimberley is a wonderful town to visit, and as you drive into town you will see signs posted on the roads claiming that Wimberley is recognized by the International Dark Sky Association as being very dark sky friendly. The city has enacted some pretty strict measures to minimize or reduce light pollution, but it may be too little, too late in their case. If you look at a Bortle map of this part of the state. Wimberley is barely better than a suburban location. Now, Roland's and Marj's vacation home in Hawaii (in the upper left quadrant in the bottom screen shot), They have still got some pretty dark skies. Mike  
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Sébastien Doré
On a more positive note, there are some good initiatives around the globe from simple people asking mayors of their locality to promote dark skies special events in which they shutdown (almost) all public lighting downtown for several hours
on a predetermined night.
All citizens are invited to get together to benefit from the incredible views they have access to right above their home town / backyard on that very special night. It’s also a good opportunity to shot some great urban wide field photos
featuring the wonders above and of course it is perfect time to educate people about light pollution, its harmful effects on astronomy/human life/wildlife and how they can mitigate it with careful lighting planning/usage.
Those are isolated initiatives for the most part I think (but getting more and more popular especially in some regions of Europe) and so imagine if every big city/state would have one of those on the same night... or, let’s dream for an entire
week (like the annual international dark sky week: https://idsw.darksky.org/ ) or during the NEAF/AIC weekends, etc. Darkness for hundreds of kilometers around available to everybody for a few hours on a well chosen
cloudless, Moonless night...🤩
I bet you it would make those who have never seen a truly dark sky realize what they are missing and help our cause somehow...
I’m thinking, any AstroNuts ready to jump in and ask their mayor for such a coordinated event ?
Sébastien
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One persuasive angle might be focusing on the profound waste of valuable energy every night, blasting billions of watts of energy up and away into the night sky, where it benefits nothing and no one. On Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 4:14 PM Sébastien Doré <sebastiendore1@...> wrote:
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fernandorivera3
On those VERY RARE OCCASIONS when my vacation time from work, clear transparent skies & New Moon week actually coincide- I travel to either of 2 favorite dark sky sites of mine, both here in Texas. Unfortunately for either place it is 7 hours or 11 hours on the road EACH WAY (not round trip) 😳
Absolutely no way would I do serious deep sky viewing from my DOWNTOWN location! The LED billboards, gas station convenience stores, strip malls etc light pollution at night is so EGREGIOUS that it is probably seen easily from the International Space Station during its orbit. Shielded light fixtures are not in place anywhere for perhaps hundreds of miles in ANY DIRECTION 😡 Fernando |
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Joe Zeglinski
Fernando,
Just to be clear – pun intended – you are
saying ... You wouldn’t do any deep sky VIEWING from your downtown
area? How about deep sky imaging using decent
Narrow Band filters?
I do that, but always substitute for the
standard Luminance clear filter with a Hutech IDAS- P2, for Monochrome
CCD’s, preserving the SII line, (which the -D2 version for DSLR/One-shot
blocks out). That effectively blocks out city light pollution sources on its
own, in tri-colour imaging. Even the best expensive ones pay for themselves in
no time, at the cost of gas to drive to a dark site.
I image only from within a major
metropolitan city, (population 6.3 million), with my AP-1200/RC-14.5 often
pointed only about 20 degrees DIRECTLY above a row of High Pressure Sodium vapour lamp towers, high up on a
nearby elevated highway, with a wall of condo towers as their background. Like
your home base, there are also a few highway LED billboards, which are
insignificant compared to the other polluters, as shown in my backyard
photo.
– And yet I still get excellent 5 to 15
minute “unguided”, unprocessed, single exposure images of The Pelican,
Eagle, Horsey Head, and Rosette.
I originally despaired that it
would seem impossible, but now I ... “never leave the city” ... for
what is ironically called our club’s “dark spot”, in a distant provincial
forest clearing. Nice to run a session from the comforts of home in any season,
away from dew, cold, and mosquitoes, with good food & fine music, as I
“observe” the screen’s captured images. There is no escape from sky glow –
unless you stick with Narrow Band imaging, which surprisingly is still very
rewarding, for now, in spite of Elon Musk’s increasing attempts to ruin it for
every serious observer, over the entire planet.
So, don’t give up on city based
observing.
Joe Z.
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Roland Christen
Elon Musk’s increasing attempts to ruin it for every serious observer, over the entire planet. Speaking of Elon, did everyone see yesterday's APOD? https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220614.html
Last night I was showing someone how to image with a scope and astrocamera. He was looking up at the sky and at one point said "hey look, a satellite!". All I could think was GRRRRRR.
Rolando
-----Original Message----- From: Joe Zeglinski <J.Zeglinski@...> To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Sent: Wed, Jun 15, 2022 10:03 am Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Our blinding blaring world Fernando,
Just to be clear – pun intended – you are
saying ... You wouldn’t do any deep sky VIEWING from your downtown
area? How about deep sky imaging using decent
Narrow Band filters?
I do that, but always substitute for the
standard Luminance clear filter with a Hutech IDAS- P2, for Monochrome
CCD’s, preserving the SII line, (which the -D2 version for DSLR/One-shot
blocks out). That effectively blocks out city light pollution sources on its
own, in tri-colour imaging. Even the best expensive ones pay for themselves in
no time, at the cost of gas to drive to a dark site.
I image only from within a major
metropolitan city, (population 6.3 million), with my AP-1200/RC-14.5 often
pointed only about 20 degrees DIRECTLY above a row of High Pressure Sodium vapour lamp towers, high up on a
nearby elevated highway, with a wall of condo towers as their background. Like
your home base, there are also a few highway LED billboards, which are
insignificant compared to the other polluters, as shown in my backyard
photo.
– And yet I still get excellent 5 to 15
minute “unguided”, unprocessed, single exposure images of The Pelican,
Eagle, Horsey Head, and Rosette.
I originally despaired that it
would seem impossible, but now I ... “never leave the city” ... for
what is ironically called our club’s “dark spot”, in a distant provincial
forest clearing. Nice to run a session from the comforts of home in any season,
away from dew, cold, and mosquitoes, with good food & fine music, as I
“observe” the screen’s captured images. There is no escape from sky glow –
unless you stick with Narrow Band imaging, which surprisingly is still very
rewarding, for now, in spite of Elon Musk’s increasing attempts to ruin it for
every serious observer, over the entire planet.
So, don’t give up on city based
observing.
Joe Z.
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