Light Pollution: Is It Really Worth Twining About?

[CumbrianGadgey]

First of all, 'twining' is a Northern word meaning moaning or complaining.

Next, I live in a small market town ten miles from the only city of any size. This may be the difference but I've found that on the nights I think light pollution is a problem, the viewing conditions are far from ideal also. If they are good, then light pollution is no problem.

Perhaps it exaggerates the situation, but it is not the cause. The cause is liquid moisture and particles in the atmosphere. These diffract light and result in a lack of clarity anyway. When they are present, (especially the liquid water droplets that act as millions of lenses) you won't see anything clearly anyway.

The real problem is not how many street lights there are but the flipping weather conditions and we can't do anything about them.

[ronin]

Not really.

Astronomers are very much a minority group and in any village/town/city the people who want lights will far outweigh the remainder.

It is probably more constructive to point out the advantages in cost of better more efficent and controlled lighting. However that is only really applicable to council operated lighting, and changes will not occur overnight, 20 years maybe and not 100%. Security lights on and around company buildings are up to the owners of the places and unless a specific nuiscence there is not a great deal that can be accomplished.

As someone who drives to an astro site there is one stretch of road that is non-illuminated it does however have a pathway one side that ends and continues on the other side of the road (odd arrangement) and the times I have just missed a pedestrian crossing is numerous.

We wear dark clothing in the makority of instances now, I do as well. Do you remember the Wear something white at night campagne from many years back. Created because people were getting knocked down.

[acey]

It's true that more moisture in the air means more reflected ground light, and in very dry conditions there may be very little reflection from distant ground sources. But in UK we always have very moist air in comparison with sites in e.g. US. And it's assuming that you're well away from ground sources to begin with. Many observers are at sites where there are bright glare sources (mainly streetlights) which prevent the eye from adapting properly.

I observe at a UK dark site where there are no visible ground sources and zenith sky quality reaches 21.7. The nearest major town is more than twenty miles away, but its light dome is highly intrusive, even on the driest nights, making observation close to the horizon in that direction impossible. So I shall continue to moan about light pollution, and will continue to advise deep-sky astronomers to spend their money on petrol in order to get away from it, rather than waste money on aperture that is wasted in a brightly lit town.

[ollypenrice]

It is worth campaigning, yes. Whining, however, is always waste of time. Darkness is a part of nature and destroying it is a form of pollution. Much of the polluting light is mindless, unnecessary and wasteful. Part of the problem is one of perception. 'But without street lights I'd need to have a torch to go out,' bleat the utterly dependent. Of course you would, pea brain, just as you have to put on shoes since we don't carpet the pavements... yet! I always take a torch to go out at night because it's... dark, you see.

When you say you don't find the LP too bad, have you experienced a dark site, a really dark site, where the Milky Way is not just visible but shining brightly? It's beautiful and it is ours by right. This ghastly orange glow is the result of collective madness.

Olly

[Dave_D]

This ghastly orange glow is the result of collective madness.

Olly

 There's a lot of collective madness near me 

[tich]

Here's something that David Fuller from eyes on the sky mentioned about light pollution reduction which I found interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXKezZMyJoU

I'll be putting in what I can see from my location got nothing to lose really, ok astronomers may be a minority but since having a sodium light outside my home my sleep patterns have been all over the place.

[dick_dangerous]

Personally I just get on with it and tromp down to the park. Unless there's a major power outage, there's nothing I can do about London's Light Pollution so I might as well make the best of it. Down in the New Forest is interesting - my parent's have never fixed the curtains in their back room, so the light pours out into the garden, great when you're trying to observe! Except... I could easily see such faint objects as M33 and M1, and M31 and the Milky Way with the naked eye. If you want dark skies, you've got to travel, but even more important is to get away from large urban areas. Even being in a small market town makes all the difference.

DD

[acey]

 I could easily see such faint objects as M33 and M1, and M31 and the Milky Way with the naked eye. If you want dark skies, you've got to travel, but even more important is to get away from large urban areas. Even being in a small market town makes all the difference.

If you can see M33 naked eye then your eyesight is better than most people's. If you can see M1 then it's super-human!

[cantab]

So I shall continue to moan about light pollution, and will continue to advise deep-sky astronomers to spend their money on petrol in order to get away from it, rather than waste money on aperture that is wasted in a brightly lit town.

When you put it that way, it seems like more aperture in the city is going to be the cheaper option!

[dick_dangerous]

If you can see M33 naked eye then your eyesight is better than most people's. If you can see M1 then it's super-human!

Oops! I'm making unfounded claims due to poor proof-reading - I could see M33 and M1 through the scope. Although I've heard that M33 is on the cusp of naked eye visibility from a super dark site, the first time I saw it was through a 'scope.

What shall I claim to have seen with my eyeballs next? How about the Little Dumb-bell? Or a few quasars!

DD

[Mike73]

When I want to go fishing I load the van up, drive to the beach and fish. I catch bigger fish at the beach than in my pond....

[scarp15]

Nicely put Mike,

[wxsatuser]

I have been contributing to light polution, until now it did'nt bother me.

Now I'm back in the game I have removed my back garden security light.

If only I could remove a neighbours that shines directly across my obsy.

[Matrim]

Sorry, beginner question here. I live in Leicestershire half way between Leicerster and Loughborough and like most people my neighbours appear particularly enamoured of security lights. When I do try and observe I tend to lug the telescope to the childrens park behind the houses. I do, on the other hand, have a much bigger park behind there (Bradgate Park) - would it be worth moving to this larger location even though (Leicester especially) would be very visible. Bradgate Park is also quite high (in Leicestershire terms) though I do not know if that would help or hinder.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I always call them insecurity lights. They are installed by the insecure, and offer no security

[hunterknox]

When I want to go fishing I load the van up, drive to the beach and fish. I catch bigger fish at the beach than in my pond....

Aah, but in this analogy everyone starts with an ocean full of fish, it's just that they're prevented from fishing it .

My 2 penn'oth - I think it's a tough battle but worth doing. Councils & lighting engineers seem to be coming around, whether through economics or better education.

(In)security lights are a growing problem round my way, not only because they tend to be hard to filter out, but also because they tend to be excessively bright and badly installed. One local garage has a couple of well designed, full cut-off lights which are intended to "throw" light out at an angle at an angle of (I'd guess) 70 degrees or so, however whoever installed them evidently did so without reading the instructions and just pointed them at about 45 degrees to the horizontal.  The result is that they get less light than they've paid for and we get more than we need.

Gadgey - the problem of light pollution is caused by a combination of atmospheric refraction and excess light. Only one of these is easily modifiable. Don't forget that some of the best seeing comes at times of low transparency...

[Paul M]

My night sky is all but washed out by light pollution, particularly when Blackpool's lovely Illuminations are on

I'm all for dark sky campaigns but we need to box clever.

Telling an uncaring world that they are missing out on something big is no good. Unless light pollution starts affecting the film sets of Albert Square or Conurbation Street, or stops the broadcast of Celebrity Big Brother Dancing On Cakes in The Jungle Kitchen, the masses don't care and would consider us as selfish for expecting them to even think of others.

The only way to sell it is on economic grounds. I don't know how much my own council spends on lighting up the empty streets all night long but I bet they could save a lot of money by not doing so. Perhaps a small minority might also be moved by the environmental issue of wasting energy. All that wasted energy adds to our collective Carbon Footprint (I hate that phrase but maybe we can use it to advantage?) however green we try to be as individuals.

How about councils knocking a percentage off our Council Tax bills and them not supplying the electricity for street lighting. Instead they could install coin slot meters on each lamp post and anyone who particularly wants a light outside their house can pay for it as and when they need it.

I very much doubt there'd be much street lighting going on

Hit them in the pocket! It's the only way

[hunterknox]

Here's an interesting map. It's not all one-way traffic...

[Mike73]

Here's an interesting map. It's not all one-way traffic...

see....Theres lots of places to fish from!

I dont observe from home, its way too frustrating. I get a average SQM reading of about 19.8 and every bathroom light within 100 metres seems to come on just as I get dark adapted.

If I'm feeling lazy I drive just 15 minutes out of town where used to get an average of 21.3. What I have noticed in the last two years is that terrible orange skyglow isn't half as bad and average readings at the zenith seem to be around 21.4 , not a huge improvement but if it carries on at that rate I'II be a happy man in ten years time! 

[entropia]

I went out of the city on the weekend and we were driving in the countryside with no lights at all. I forgot how beautiful the sky is. In the city I can only see the brightest stars in Orion but that night it took me a couple of seconds to find Orion, the sky is actually filled with stars .

I think it is hard to fight light pollution because of safety issues. Actually, in some countries, people fight to get public lighting installed

I read this on a book last night and I couldn't believe it:)

In 1994, when the Northridge earthquake knocked out the power in LA, people contacted authorities and observatories wondering what the strange bright lights (stars) in the sky were. 

Light pollution has become sort of a problem in very developed areas. Apparently two thirds of the world can’t see the Milky Way at night because of it. As you probably know, light pollution is caused by an excess of artificial light, resulting in an inability to see much of the starry sky. 

In Los Angeles, for example, stars are barely visible at night. In some areas they can’t be seen at all at night. But surely everyone knows that, right? Wrong. In 1994, following the Northridge earthquake at 4:31 a.m., the local observatory received many calls asking about “the strange sky” people were seeing after the earthquake. What happened? 

The earthquake had cause a blackout, and because so many people had never left the city and thus never seen stars, the sight was completely foreign to them. The sad truth of it is that this is only going to get worse. The more that places become urbanized, the more people will grow up not knowing just how many stars are in the sky. 

[Pint Of Stellar]

Talking about insecurity lights, this is funny but a warning alert that it contains some rude words.

http://www.27bslash6.com/halogen.html

[Wikiastro]

Got to say, our local council is doing quite well on this front. Lights now go off 12:00 till 5:30 am. Also, the sodium lamps,have all been replaced by a different type - not sure what but its whiter and seems to scatter less in the sky. Maybe LED or CFL.

[Killie]

Would love to see our lights go off like that but I just can't imagine it would pass the court of "Public Safety" here