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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."
I couldn't agree with you more. When I was a young teen, I lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Because I had such and interest in astronomy, they allowed me purchase my first telescope, a 4 1/4 inch reflector from Edmund Scientific. I could go out into my back yard on almost any given night and have a clear sky (weather permitting, of course) and see most of the stellar sights. It was amazing and awe inspiring. We'd go to farmlands of Lancaster and it was just like you could fall off the Earth.
Today, I live even further in the "country" and can see almost nothing. Yes, there are a few nights when I can see the stars, those are the nights of power failures. It's very sad. As real-estate developers continue to build larger, more luxurious homes with overzealous lighting in already heavily populated areas or buy out the precious open space, the situation just keeps getting worse.
In the 60's and 70's, the sky was still pretty amazing. No wonder we wanted to go into space. Now, we look up and it's not quite so awe inspiring...sorta like a polluted beach or something. "Who wants to go there???" we ask.
People wonder what the big fuss is all about. But, as the previous poster stated, it truly is a humbling experience to look up and see the heavens as our forefathers did hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.
In some respects, the Californian's are lucky. With the rolling blackouts, maybe they'll get a glimpse to see what we are all missing.
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.
You didn't have to go to so much trouble just to nag me.
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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.