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Atlas of Worldwide Light Pollution
mgarraha writes: "Researchers at the University of Padua and NOAA have analyzed DMSP data to produce a new atlas
of night sky brightness due to artificial lighting. Previous maps only showed the distribution of light sources. Their
paper
will appear in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Here is an AP article."
The reason for this divide is the large pool of relatively warm water to the south -- the Gulf of Mexico. Frontal systems crossing the midsection of the continent are relatively moisture-starved until they can tap the much higher precipitable waters in the atmosphere influenced by the Gulf.
In spite of the govt's effort to populate the drylands of the West in the late 19th century, Ma Nature played her winning card with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Now, even though the high plains are intensively farmed once again, it's only because of powerful electric pumps which will deplete most of the Ogallala aquifer in the next 20-50 years. After that, the left hand side of that line will be really dark.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Yup, I can confirm this. I've lived in heavily populated areas for my entire life, and with my typical computer-user nearsightedness didn't think much of the stars.
Then I took a trip down US 84 through northern Texas. Let me tell you, when you can see stars out the *SIDE WINDOW OF THE CAR*, you really are in the middle of nowhere.
We parked in a rest area outside Post, TX, and you could see them all the way down to the horizon.
If you don't think constellations are impressive, then you just haven't gotten to a place that's dark enough.
this "light pollution" is just a problem made up by do-gooders.
Well, it's mostly caused by wasted light. Most of the light that actually comes out of a street fixture goes straight up into the air, where it does no one any good. That's a tremendous amount of wasted energy. The light bulb's efficiency sucks already. But now we have to make it put out more light just to see what we're doing on the ground. When headlights (which on EVERY SUV in the country are TOO BRIGHT and pointed up TOO HIGH) shine into a driver's eyes, he has more trouble seeing the road. That's actually dangerous. There's a type of headlight that's made in Europe, (my car aficianado friends tell me) which focuses a far sharper cone on the road and works about a thousand times better. They are not permitted in the US because the DOT standard is "good enough."
All in all, light pollution, besides ruining the night sky for astronomers and amateurs alike, is a pretty important topic. Our energy costs could go down . . . oh yeah. I forgot, that would hurt the oil com^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heconomy.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
If we are seeing so much artificial lighting from space, then it says something about the lighting used. If the light sources were only pointing their light towards the grounds, using shrouds to avoid upward distribution of light, then we should see a darker night view. Also, any light source that can be seen from space is probably also using more energy than necessary. Being environmental friendly is not always a question of finding an alternative, but simply using what we already have in a smarter way.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Disclaimer; I'm an amateur astronomer and a member of the Int'l Dark Sky Association. The thing that drives the light pollution activists most nuts is that this is nearly all waste. The majority of lights, and nearly all of the lights that you see in situations like this, are badly designed lighting fixtures that spill much (sometimes more than half) of their light uselessly into the sky. People put in lights to illuminate buildings and roadways, then they use crappy fixtures that send more light into your eyes than onto the intended target. Bad lighting is sometimes worse than no lighting at all. I've certainly driven down roads where I could see better after I get out of the lighted street area, because of the glare from the lights directly in my eyes. I've also seen really bad flood lamp security lighting where a robber could walk right up to the house and not be seen, because again, the lamps are glaring in your eyes so bad you can't see in the shadows. It's this kind of thing that gets me going. That, and people that are so scared of the boogeyman that they have to have several thousand watts of lights on their property up all night long.
God forbid people actually do good...
I wish this were true, but it isn't. All you have to do is take a walk in any U.S. city, and you'll see people deliberately choosing wasteful vehicles, parking them in front of homes or offices with deliberately wasteful landscaping, living deliberately wasteful lifestyles. By now all Americans know how wasteful they are, but choose to do nothing about it. In fact, we have a tendency to stigmatize those who choose not to deliberately waste resources.
As far as intelligent choice and design not being free, that's true. Intelligent choices and designs are usually a win for the consumer because water wise landscaping, or sky-friendly/good neighbor lighting and efficient vehicles cost the same or less to install/acquire and cost far less to maintain.
A well-crafted lie appears unquestionable - Dama Mahaleo
driving up auto insurance rates by making yourselves more vulnerable to injury
Wow. Let me tell you a story about four fucking wheel drive. About ten years ago, I was driving through Kansas in November or so. Doing 70 mph, we drove onto an inch-thick sheet of ice, rather suddenly. The wind was chilling the road, and all the melting snow suddenly became solid. The car in front of me (just a car) started fishtailing. I tapped my brake ever so lightly, not yet realizing my peril, and I was fishtailing too. Well the car in front of me lost control and went off the right side of the road, flipped upside down, blew his front and rear windows out, and landed sitting upright. Screaming kids, stunned drivers. I went off to the left, but managed to keep the car upright, and safely stopped. The 18-wheel truck behind us managed to come to a safe stop as well.
After I talked to the driver of the car, and made sure they were all alive, we drove to the next town to call the police (this was before every pinhead had a cell phone in his back pocket) and for the next hundred miles I counted a four-wheel-drive vehicle tumbled over on the side of the road every three miles. I only saw one or two regular-sized cars. Almost without exception, the people who misjudged their driving abilities, their speed, and their car's traction, were driving a hopped-up SUV or light truck of one kind or another. I saw maybe three or four regular cars. The rest of us, not having this blind belief in the indestructibility of our vehicles, drove slowly and cautiously. But the SUV assholes roared past us all, and a good number of them ended up inverted in a ditch. So DON'T TELL ME about how your SUV is so fucking safe. I laughed as I drove past some of those people. I laughed the fuck out loud. You are buying the DELUSION of safety with an SUV.
My original post had nothing to do with the fitness of these cars. I just made a note that the lights were pointed higher than they needed to be. I will point out that I have yet to be blinded by the lights of a bus or 18-wheel truck. I think because they're correctly configured. It's as if the SUV designers sat down in a smaller car, right in front of the SUV, and designed the lights so that they could not help but annoy the driver in front of them.
People wouldn't hate SUV's so much if their designers and owners didn't make such a point of being arrogant about them. I can't tell you how I long to go up to a Jeep and paint in big bold letters on the back windshield: "No, it's a penis thing, and sadly, I do understand."
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
I see you don't know shit about flying (and probably driving too). The first rules of navigation is to (1) use the best source of data available and to (2) use all sources of data available. Just because you can paint your plane's windows black and fly solely by your guages alone doesn't mean that's what you must do all the time. If following is easier, then it's the BETTER way to fly. And most plane crashes are caused by running out of fuel or mechanical problems. How many "disabled vehicles" do you hear about on the traffic reports every day? How many small plane crashes do you hear about every day. Who is being safer?
A couple of points:
(a) seeing the universe laid out for real is awe-inspiring and more than a little humbling. I think that if more people were to see the real night sky more often, there'd be a significant attitude change. When you realize just how insignificant and impermanent we humans are, the bullshit in life isn't so important any more.
(b) street lights actually increase crime rates. No one wants to wander the streets in the dark, it's a bugger to break into a house when you can't see what you're doing, and it's difficult to be unseen when your flashlight turns out to be the brightest thing in the neighbourhood.
(c) if you really want to be impressed, take up backpacking and head into the mountains. There are some remote areas that make the normal "real" view from out-of-town look about as cheesy as the out-of-town view makes the in-town view look!
(d) in particular, aim to be in the mountains during a meteor shower. Ye godz!
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This is due to other atmospheric hazes -- in Chicago there's all sorts of moisture in the air and other aerosols that reflect the light pollution back to you when you're looking up, thus making it harder for you to see stars. But under clean air there can be a huge amount of light pollution around you and it won't affect the sky brightness very much at all.
I've seen the Milky Way from the city of Tucson, one of those very bright spots, but never from my home of St. Louis despite the fact that they're both hopelessly light polluted, and this is why.
I live in the murky Eastern United States and if I can see a half a dozen stars from my backyard it's a good night. A few years ago I spent six weeks at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and one night several members of my team drove out to a remote corner of the site to take a picture of one of those comets that was big news in 1996 - I forget it's name. I thought the comet would be the high point of the night. It wasn't. Folks, when you are laying on your back looking up at the whole Milky Way splayed out above you, and you can really SEE that thing streching across the sky, it is a truly life humbling experience you will always remember. You almost think you could fall off the planet into the void. There is one hell of a lot more to see out there than a screen resolution of 800x600 pixels will ever show and it is worth the effort to get to dark skies to see it.