So you think you have light pollution ?

[LukeSkywatcher]

Geeze AB that LP sucks. I dont know how you stay so sane. My backgarden is a positively dark sky location compared to where you live. My brother lives in Horley. I'll tell him to switch off the lights in his house when not using them. My uncle works customs at Gatwick. I'll ask him to have a word with the boss and see about getting some of those damn lights turned off there.......specially the outside ones.

[Ptolemaeus]

I will have to take a pic of my view from my doorstep. I've only in the last few days taken note of how many lights there are right across my view from N to SE, and that doesn't include lights coming from peoples houses, its in double figures.

Luckily I have The Gower at about a half hour drive from my house, no chance of getting there in this weather though.

[PortableAstronomer]

Looks like portability is going to be an even stronger selling feature for products in 2010.

I must say I have great admiration for the astro clubs (e.g. many of the London clubs) who do organised weekends away at a B&B somewhere dark and far away ; and Hants Astro who have been working to get access to a dark site that all their members can use, so you can pack up and drive somewhere that's going to be safe.

Unfortunately where I lived most of the other members of my club had dark gardens of their own and wanted to do everything in private which I totally respect, but that just wasn't my style. So I had to arrange meet-ups outside of the club, with a mate who works at the hospital and OK'd it with the security guys there.

We arranged meet-ups of our own for people who don't have dark back gardens and want to get together for some informal observing, and got a lot of interest. However our club chairman wrote to us to say please don't mention the club name with your own meeting activities (for Health & Safety reasons). Very sad reality of the nation.

[PortableAstronomer]

So you think you've got Light Pollution?

Here's a typical residential area in the Netherlands.

This is a 4 second exposure. The brighntess in the sky is caused by massive industrial greenhouses.

To see what deep sky images are possible from here, see the SGL thread "Examples of Extreme Processing with Extreme Light Pollution"

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-tips-tricks-techniques/93728-examples-extreme-processing-extreme-light-pollution.html

[LukeSkywatcher]

That seriously cant be the real colour of the sky.

Can it?

[PortableAstronomer]

Yes that's what it's like, although admittedly that photo did have some cloud in the sky which obviously makes it even worse.

In the thread Extreme Processing with Extreme Light Pollution you see the before image and after image of what DSO's I've been trying to image. Some of the results are quite surprising.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I've looked at that thread and the results are great. I just had no idea the colour of the sky in the originals was THAT BAD.

[Macavity]

I think it no bad thing to highlight (sic) the tribulations (some) astronomers go through... One should not get immured in complacency or indeed self pity. But one might derive ENCOURAGEMENT from the *odd* triumph over significant adversity. Keep on truckin' (or something) people? (Badly expressed, but what the heck!)

[Jim M]

A sad sight, Astro Baby. But your views of the Moon, planets and bright double stars should still be good.

My dark site is a 50 minute drive each way, so I don't do it often (given the moon, weather and other committments, it ends up being about once a month). I just make sure I make the most of each precious session.

Nobody expects to go skiing in their back garden. There are some hobbies that you've just got to make a bit of an effort for, and enjoy them when you can.

That's true when it's down to geography etc but astronomy is not one of those. People who pollute should be made to stop and dispose of their unwanted in a sensible way and that includes light pollution. The night sky is a magnificent resource we should not let the wasters take away from us.

[Jim M]

So you think you've got Light Pollution?

Here's a typical residential area in the Netherlands.

This is a 4 second exposure. The brighntess in the sky is caused by massive industrial greenhouses.

To see what deep sky images are possible from here, see the SGL thread "Examples of Extreme Processing with Extreme Light Pollution"

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-tips-tricks-techniques/93728-examples-extreme-processing-extreme-light-pollution.html

yes yes that's all well and good if you are into astrophotography and can process your images but some of us simply enjoy the sky using simpler modes such as naked eye, binoculars and with a telescope. We really should do something about light pollution rather than cope with it.

[Astro_Baby]

The astrophotography route is, for me, not what I would enjoy. I live on a large estate with many passers by. I can well imagine the risks of sitting on a lawn surrounded by passing cars and pedestrians with two scopes, a power pack, PC, cameras etc.

On top of that I spend a goodly piece of each day sat in front of a PC - the idea of doing a hobby that requires me to spend even more time in front of a PC is a complete turn off for me and if that were the sole option for me as regards astronomy I'd simply pack it in and take up something else. Duck shooting perhaps, whaling - something suitably nasty

Thats a personal view of astro-imaging. Astroimaging seems to me to be a hobby where you need at least your own garden. Trying to do it in front of a block of flats with cars whizzing up and down, people walking dogs, coming in and out, children, dog poo on the lawn etc etc etc would seem rather like those record breaking challenges you see of people pogo-sticking across the Andes or attempting to row across the Pacific in a washing up bowl.

At least if carbon taxes really come in and bite some of these idiots might actually start switching stuff off. As I look out my back window at the moment I see the industrial estate ablaze with lights illuminating empty car parks, office units with every single internal light on. To the front of the flats I see a sports ground lit up by millions of watts of floodlights until 2am in a howling blizzard. No on can possibly be using it (and they arent) so why do they have all those lights running ?

At the front of the estate there is an uplighter display illuminating a pond and some trees 'cos it looks pretty' - maybe a hefty dose of taxes or perhaps the collapse of industrial civilisation is something to look forward to - after all its an ill wind and all that

[PortableAstronomer]

Yes I take the point it's better to deal with the problem than cope with it.

For the moment I'm coping with it. But it's also why I stopped visual astronomy years ago. Well there's always those trips away to the hills; such a shame they're so necessary though.

[xyz]

The "Good News" - complete power failure in much of the bollenstreek - where I live in the Netherlands, all lights out - pitch black for a change. The "Bad News" horizontal snow and sleet ... grrrrr

[James]

With all these lights being left on in industrial units, hospitals, public buildings, churches etc etc one thing seems pretty clear to me. Electricity must be way too cheap...

Putting up the cost of electricity considerably may help curb some of the extravangant waste of electricity in the form of lighting.

I know there's plenty of people out there struggling to pay their leccy bills etc but there's plenty of ways around that with just a little imagination...

James

[Astro_Baby]

You know James I work for Council and until recently I was working for a certain Council that had the offices floodlit from dusk to dawn. Despite sustainability being supposedly one of the Councils aims and the Council also suffering a major budget deficit it took ages to get the message through that illuminating a council office through the night in a sleep little Surrey town was wasteful in so many ways.

The best I was able to acheive in the end was a switch off after midnight and to get that far made me a figure of fun 'there goes loony Mel again - always harping on about blumming floodlights'

[James]

Utterly depressing isn't it Mel?

My council were more sympathetic but the results were the same...

James

[jonathan]

If I know my history, in the early years when electricity took over from gas lighting everyone would leave their lights on everywhere, every shop, every street lamp, every town.. the sky glow must have been quite something! Of course, they didn't have the massive outdoor lights that we have now so maybe it wouldn't have been comparable. It was only when WWII blackouts came along, then the three day week and rolling blackouts of the 1970s, that people actually realised just how much energy was being wasted on this kind of lighting. Looks like we're back to the 1920s - despite the recession companies, councils, and individuals are still pumping out all of this light unnecessarily. We have a couple of security lights that come on when something moves, me for example when I carry my telescope out; they go off after a few minutes. I wish it was law that a security light had to be triggered and not on permanently, this would surely save a lot of energy and, assuming there were no burglars, a lot of light pollution too.

Thinking about the security thing - if an industrial site is dark then maybe someone can creep around more easily, but we have things called night vision cameras now and I'm betting a few of those costs a lot less to run than massive lights everywhere, and it's far more likely to catch a burglar at it as they might not bother wearing a mask; also, a burglar in the dark is more likely to use a torch so that should be a dead give away too. I suppose they could invest in some night vision goggles, but that's no protection against night vision cameras!

[smulx]

That's brutal. Makes me feel better about my garden.

[callisto]

After looking at some of those pics, I will never complain about my back garden again