HOw do you know what's light polution and what's haze?

[peteuplink]

I've been outside tonight and there's quite a lot of broken cloud about, but what appears to be clear skies inbetween, but I think there's a thin layer of cloud above the thicker clouds. So even when it's clear I don't think it is completely.

It's been like this the last couple of days, but even on days when the sky has appeared to be clear, it's still been quite hard to see stars, even the ones that my star maps say should be visible to the naked eye. I'm sure the skies round here have been darker than this before.

We do have a lot of those very bright LED lights here, but they're at the front of the house, the area I stargaze in is a small, unlit piece of land at the back of the houses. There's lights in the street, but the only light sources I get out the back is if someone puts a back bedroom light on, or something.

How do I tell what's light polution and what's a thin layer of cloud/haze? Should I just wait and see if the conditions improve?

[mark7331]

I've experienced the same for the last two nights. There's a thin layer of mist hanging over the land. If you see stars that are "twinkling" a lot then it's mist. LP just swamps the dimmer stars so you can't see them at all.

Dancing stars = mist.

[omneferuss]

when the air above is moisture laden it reflects and refracts more of the lightpollution back at you... it's not just local lights in your immediate vicinity but even the light from townships, industrial sources, highways etc at some distance that contribute to making your sky 'milky' under these conditions.

[Beulah]

when the air above is moisture laden it reflects and refracts more of the lightpollution back at you... it's not just local lights in your immediate vicinity but even the light from townships, industrial sources, highways etc at some distance that contribute to making your sky 'milky' under these conditions.

I saw this phenomena the other morning at 5.00am...half the sky was lit with a sickly orange glow, although the nearest street lights (at the moment ) are seven miles away, other main large towns 20 - 40 miles away. It was rather apocalyptic!

[peteuplink]

Thanks for the replies. I thought it might have been a thin layer of mist or something reflecting the light back at night, but I wasn't sure.

The sky is clearer this morning and I can see blue sky. It's a very hazy, pale blue sky though.

According to my local forecast on the met office website it's supposed to be clear skies with moderate visibility between 19:00 and 22:00 tonight.

I was asking about it because I'm sure it's been darker here in the past, but I couldn't remember if that was before they put in the new street laps or not. We only had a few of the old yellowish street lamps here originally, but back in 2007 or so they fitted a lot of those bright, white ones and everything's lit up like a Christmas tree now.