Pollution

[Roy Foreman]

Increasing light pollution is the bane of all astronomers - particularly those doing imaging. I am fortunate enough to live in an area where light pollution, although present, is low enough to enable imaging without the use of filtration on occasions.

My big problem is - pollution. It feels like I am constantly trying to image through a fog of water vapour and other airborne rubbish. And not all of it is airborne. Recently, trying to image in the constellation of Orion, an alarming number of my subs were ruined by satellite trails.

This reminded me of an imaging session a couple of years back, taking wide angle shots of the whole of Orion. I guess about 25% of the frames had satellite trails on, and one had captured five trails in a single 60 sec exposure !

I am now starting to take additional subs just to compensate for this.

It seems, not content with polluting our own planet, we are now starting to clutter up space as well. Heaven help us.

[stevepsheehan]

With the recent arrival of Starlink, and future similar projects, it's only going to get worse 😞

[wulfrun]

I've only been observing (more than just casually, anyway) for a few months so I don't have a reference point. However, it seems that I have seen at least one satellite every time. More often several and not infrequently whizzing across the eyepiece view, regardless of where I'm looking. It's not spoiling my interest (yet) as an observer-only person but it does make me wonder.

It feels sad that we aren't content with polluting the ground and oceans. If we aren't careful, we'll also have cut off the possibility of future exploration shots too. I wouldn't want the job of planning a route through!

[JRWASTRO]

Greetings Roy,

Re:  Increasing light pollution is the bane of all astronomers

Yes light pollution (LP) is the bane of all astronomers and as I have discovered there is absolutely nothing that can be done about this. Notice that with all the talk of action to reduce LP it is actually increasing. So instead of complaining about LP I have decided to study it and write a paper about it. Will this be of use? Of course not. But it will a nice paper.  If I was young enough I could make a career out of this LP study. Why ? I could convince a moneyed sponsor that my work could save them a great deal of money. As Sir Humphrey Appleby would say "I am a moral vacuum".

Jeremy.

 

[Roy Challen]

8 hours ago, JRWASTRO said:

 

Yes light pollution (LP) is the bane of all astronomers...

 

Different Roy here, 

LP isn't just the bane of astronomers, it's the bane of everybody, except that most people don't realise it yet.

I guess it has affected my choice of targets over the years, however, I now focus almost solely on visual observation of the sun and the moon and save DSOs for the bins and dark, foreign skies. So, LP doesn't really get in the way of my astronomy.

[JRWASTRO]

Very sad but this is what one is driven to use :

1. https://optcorp.com/products/zwo-duo-band-filter-2

and a bit more expensive

2.  https://optcorp.com/products/radian-telescopes-2-inch-triad-ultra-filter

Sad.

Jeremy.