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Making War On Light Pollution
Hugh Pickens writes "Almost thirty years ago I worked in the Middle East helping install a nationwide communications system and had the opportunity to be part of a team doing microwave link tests across Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter. Something I've never forgotten were the astonishing nights I spent in the desert hundreds of miles from the nearest city where the absence of light made looking at the sky on a moonless night feel like you were floating in the middle of the galaxy. In Galileo's time, nighttime skies all over the world would have merited the darkest Bortle ranking, Class 1. Today, the sky above New York City is Class 9 and American suburban skies are typically Class 5, 6, or 7. The very darkest places in the continental United States today are almost never darker than Class 2, and are increasingly threatened. Read a story from the New Yorker on what we have lost to light pollution and how some cities are adopting outdoor lighting standards to save the darkness."
Someone's firing too much magic missile.
We should be making love on light pollution, not war!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I live in Salt Lake City, and the light pollution here is just like any other city. My favorite place is to visit Lake Powell, near the Arizona border where there are no city lights for at least 50-100 miles.
I always thought it would be nice if we had one day a year where people made a conscious effort to turn off all their lights, like "Star's Day" or some other stupid name so people could have one night a year to keep lights off, but that would inevitably just lead to an increase in crime for that night, so... darn.
We'll just have to enjoy it when I'm camping.
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
Ok, so maybe this is a straw man, but if you like viewing the night sky it is up to you to get a good view for your hobby. Is a better sky view for a few enthusiasts really worth the cost of someone (extra) getting mugged in a dark parking lot or one extra girl getting raped on a dark street/alley?
A couple that was married for 20 years always made love with the lights off.
Well, after 20 years, the wife felt this was ridiculous. She figured she would break him out of this crazy habit.
So one night, while they were in the middle of a wild, screaming, romantic session, she turned the lights on.
She looked down... and saw that her husband was holding a battery-operated pleasure device -- a vibrator -- softer and larger than a real penis.
She went completely ballistic. "You impotent bastard," she screamed at him, "how could you be lying to me all of these years? You better explain yourself!"
The husband looks her straight in the eyes and says calmly:
"I'll explain the toy... if you explain the kids."
Moral of the story? everyone is happy when you turn the lights off at night.
Unfortunately, a lot of citizens of San Jose want white lights for some reason (especially car dealerships), so I don't know how much longer that'll last.
sigfault. core dumped.
The most impressive sky I have ever seen was right after a typhoon on the island of Guam.
I snuck out of my house when I was 16 and the island was still under a typhoon warning and nobody was outside.
The entire island and the neighboring island of Truk were both without power entirely and there was not a single cloud in the sky.
It truly was a spectacular sight and I do feel sad when I look up into the night here in the states.
You can't imagine what it's like until you've seen it for yourself. Really
Rats would be more funny if they could fart.
With their concentrations of technology and arts and entertainment and seeing the road at night and such.
They steal our guns and they steal our sky. The sooner they go, the better.
From the article:
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV...
Stop the light pollution... tint your windows.
At least where I live, many women demand more lighting during the night, for reasons of safety. And I think them feeling safer is worth more than more visible stars in the sky. Same goes for streetlights for road safety.
While lights at night may make the sky harder to see the effect will be very pretty for any visiting aliens.
In fact this story has inspired me to go and set up xplanet again to provide an ever-changing desktop background.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
Tucson AZ has been fighting light pollution for more than 20 years. This isn't exactly a new fight. That said, it's gaining momentum. In part thanks to the IDA. That having been said, this won't be won until the general population sees light pollution as a bad thing. We aren't there yet but with more general public articles there are chances that light pollution becomes as well known as air and water pollution.
For what it's worth, some estimate that there are about 700,000 amateur astronomers in the US. It's not a huge number. But it's much bigger than the just a few geeks that some would make you think.
It's a good fight and it starts at home, you can do your part by turning off the exterior lights of your house when you don't need them. With 2009 the international year of astronomy, if you help now, maybe we all will get a better view of the night sky to celebrate the 400 years of telescope observing of the night sky.
The suburban sprawl boom of the last 25 years absolutely destroyed the quality of the night sky, and I don't see it getting any better unless there is a severe energy crisis that hits the avg American's wallet. Even one of the few remaining dark sky sites in the North East is now being threatened by a proposed wind farm.
...are right behind Global Thermonuclear War and Higher Taxes on my list of reasons why we'll never get flying cars.
IOU one (1) signature
If you would RTFA instead of rushing for first post you'd see that it mentions that, when properly done, reducing the excessive and inappropriately strong lighting that covers most cities would actually aid nighttime vision by eliminating the glare.
What is the Milky Way?
They will assume you are a black market light dealer and seize all your cash and/or spare bulbs.
Where I live it is a good night if I manage to see 6 stars in the sky at night, when I go to Wales where my grandparents have a house in the mountains, away from street lights and big buildings, I can see thousands. It just shows how much of a difference it makes whether or not we turn the lights off. I seriously see little point in always-on streetlights, we not have streetlights that come on when someone is there, and stay off otherwise. Sure it will be like those horror films where the lights are turning off behind you as you run down the road, but we will atleast see stars in the sky!
I spent last winter in Iraq. (I'm a US Marine) Having spent my entire life in suburbs, I was blown away by how many stars I could see at night when I was in the open desert. The most amazing thing was being able to observe the Milky Way. When I used my night-vission-googles, I could see at least ten times as many stars.
The darkest - best sky I have ever seen - in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean its pretty dark !
I remember how easy it was to see all the space junk flying overhead - and some nebula's and galaxy's
could be discerned with the un-aided eye.. Too cool. Light pollution sucks...
I look at the sky almost every night. Hint, my nick is that of a classic telescope company, of which I own a pristine example. Please educate yourself on the issue, or at least the article, before you attempt to make light of the situation (punny).
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
All we need to do is install more power stations with Windows and the viruses will do the rest:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/14/power.outage/
No power, no light pollution
In much of North America, the moisture in the sky causes a white high altitude fog as soon as the sun goes down, so light or no light, you can't see much of anything anyway, even when you are in the middle of nowhere, of which there actually is quite a lot of around here - it's a big place. So don't blame the white night sky on all the street lights - take a drive out of the city and look up, chances are that you'll still see nothing.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
If it's that much of a problem for you, move to North Korea!
/ dprk-dark.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk
I live in a neighborhood less than 10 years old and the streetlights are the older type that distribute light in just about every direction. There's a newer section down the street using a newer lightpost style that directs the light downward and it's much better. The area is darker at night which is how it should be instead of it looking like early morning all the time. I just wish out lightposts could be updated to the new style. Ive driven to the coast to some undeveloped beaches and it's amazing to see the difference compared to a populated area at night. At the coast, the sky is so dark that you can see stars easily and sometimes you can't even see where are you walking because it's so dark. I wish cities would put more efford into preventing light pollution. Why must entire empty parking lots be lit up?
-- After all is said and done, more is said than done.
While I do understand the desire to see the night sky better, I'm not sure that this is "pollution" per se. Pollution (at least as defined by Merriam-Webster) implies contamination - light does not contaminate. Where we to just turn off all the lights and wait a few femtoseconds the night sky would be as dark as pitch. This isn't about pollution (which is something that does actually need fighting), but rather someone saying "Gee, I wish I could see the night sky better." Fair enough, and so do I, but I'm not willing to give up street lights to get it.
:)
Of course, when it comes to someone opening up their cell phone during a movie... roll out the tanks, let the war begin!
Just last night I was outside at 9:30 (I live on the outskirts of a small city in NC), and it hit me just how damn much light pollution there is. To the southwest, it actually looked like nighttime, but to the northeast, towards downtown, it still looked like twilight.
At some point in my life, I'm gonna find a place to live that's 50 miles from anywhere, so I can sit on my own porch and still get a decent view of the night sky.
Sig? What's that? Oh, 'signature'...and it's supposed to be witty? Right...
PUT THAT LIGHT OUT! (ww2)
This was done of course to make cities difficult to spot from the air, aiding enemy bombers navigate to (or identify) their target. When you think about how hard it is to get 30,000 people to cooperate on anything, it's a wonder that was even worth the effort of trying.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
While the goal of "saving the darkness" seems to be the focus, the real impetus is the energy savings. There's no point in installing light fixtures that direct half of their light up into the sky. You can save considerable amounts of money by putting a reflective cap on top of the light and then using a smaller light bulb.
Some of the first light pollution legislation in Tuscon, AZ, mandated that the light could not be seen from an angle of 30 degrees above the horizontal.
in the whole world, is to be in a place where you can see the whole universe. Makes you realize how insignificant you are in the big picture.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Actually, we can improve lighting on earth, save energy, AND improve our view of the cosmos. Our existing nighttime lighting is enormously wasteful. Good lighting design lets you "see where you're going", without blinding you with glare, or destroying your night vision with excessive light. Please visit the International Dark Sky Association which has been working to solve this problem for decades. First, realize that lights that shine up into the sky are helping no one. Any electricity used to illuminate the sky is wasteful and causes light pollution. Properly shielded lights direct light at the ground where it is helpful, instead of at the sky.
Computers obey me.
We've declared war on light!
Have you *seen* the lack of light pollution there?
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
Just a quick comment. When I was in high school I would go to my grandmother's house on Flathead Lake, Montana,in the summer. I was always amazed at all the stars. Especially coming from Seattle, where just seeing any stars was a bonus.
Allow white lights until say 10, and then after that require just the yellow lights. When I was a kid, I grew up in the country and can remember the stars that I saw. It was incredible. Now, whenever I look out there, it is just a fraction. But it is not just Light pollution.
My father was a pilot on b-49's and other miltary aircrafts, and later on the commercial aircrafts. He was telling me about the stars that he used to see in the 40's (from the ground),50's (from the planes),and somewhat into the 60s, vs what he see now at 35-50K ft.
Apparently, the view up at 45-55K during the late 50's was stupendous. Now, it is like the ground was in the 60's. Light pollution is easily changed, but it is obvious that it is air pollution that becomes the real killer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Actually, since you'll always see a street light over your head that turned on when you walked up to it. So, you'll always be under the light and won't be able to ever see stars when you're walking!
Or it would be like this:
> It is pitch dark.
> You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
A few years back on TX State Highway 77 heading north I could see an odd skyglow that I noticed just a few miles north of Raymondville TX. I was interested quickly because there is nothing in the ranch land between Raymondville and Corpus Christi that could be making that much light. Is I continued north, I noted the slowness of the angular change of the light and realized it had to be Corpus. A couple of hours of driving confirmed that the skyglow in this city of absurd light was really visible 120 miles south of here.
This city is totally filled with flood-lit carlots, an incredible amount of freeway lighting (way more per mile than any other Texas city that I've seen), billboard's littering the cityscape all lit from below, and a total disregard for our very unique coastal wildlife. Light pollution is just another example of our culture's unnatural incompatibility with our natural environment.
The streets aren't made darker by using street lamps that don't waste light to the sides or sky.
Generally seen as safer or actually safer? Given the effect reducing lighting or at least using more efficient full cutoff lighting would have on energy usage there is more at stake here than mere aesthetics.
One of the best places in the continental United States to see the night sky is in the Sandhills of north-central Nebraska. For the past 15 years, Nebraska astronomy clubs have held the Nebraska Star Party in late July or early August out in the Sandhills.
i swear i read the title as
making light on war pollution
i was expecting a lot of bush jokes.....
It's a bit more complicated than that. From a safety perspective, what you want is even lighting with fewer shadows. A brighter light can be counter productive in many areas to adding security.
The lighting we have around her is horrible, it is bright where there is light, but many of the street lights are out so the dark shadows are almost impenetrable, as the horrid yellowish orange lights pretty much destroy any night vision. In many places there are huge bushes that impede the light.
Fixing that could very well result in fewer lumens needed to light the area and still be significantly safer than what we have around here.
The other thing that they could do is use red lights rather than the more typical yellowish orange ones. While it probably doesn't make a difference directly, red lights are going to require less lumens to light an area.
...Is by pushing the money angle. If you tell people that we're losing our night sky, the vast majority will say "so what?" because they're inside in front of the TV by 6 PM anyway. What do they care? But when you explain that they are wasting cold, hard cash with over-bright bulbs in poorly designed light fittings, they (sometimes) pay attention. Not always though. People don't seem to mind wasting money it seems.
it must make the aliens laugh like crazy ,,watching the locals make it with fossil fuels
they also aren't as effective if you make them too directional.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
If you are walking down the street such that it activates the streetlights you are not star gazing, and vice versa.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
Turn off a light, save a grue.
WAR SOLVES NOTHING.
There are over 36 million lines of COBOL code in the world, and they are all raping children.
Everyone needs to start driving without their lights on. That will save the sky view! :-P
My car had bright fog lights on them. Screw the night view. I bet the animals are having a hard time sleeping without that Class 1 darkness.
Great comment. Wish I had mod points.
The article does touch upon the subject of crime: The object of security lighting is to see the criminal while not letting the criminal see you, so gigantic bright lights on all the time can only do one. Nobody's suggesting we get rid of streetlights, by the way: just make them illuminate straight downwards.
Ninjas and pirates. How piquant.
I hate to have to tell you this, but it is much more likely that you father's vision is deteriorating. The atmosphere is very thin at 55 thousand feet, and contains even less particulate matter, so there is no way that air pollution is affecting the view from that altitude.
The object of security lighting is to bathe otherwise dark places in light so that criminals will not feel secure in their ability to commit crime unseen.
"Nobody's suggesting we get rid of streetlights, by the way: just make them illuminate straight downwards."
Streetlights already employ reflectors to direct their light downward, they just let it arc over many degrees so that fewer lights will need to be installed, and so that some lights can be turned off to cool while not leaving the street dark. I think they're talking about installing a larger number of smaller lights. I don't know that that would be a worthwhile investment (and it wouldn't reduce the wattage installed in lit parking-lots).
I always thought it would be nice if we had one day a year where people made a conscious effort to turn off all their lights, like "Star's Day" or some other stupid name so people could have one night a year to keep lights off, but that would inevitably just lead to an increase in crime for that night, so... darn.
Not really, criminals need light too. And as TFA says when San Antonio started turning lights off at night at schools vandalism went down not up.
FalconShould there be a Law?
There are many instances where lighting is being used when there is no one around to benefit from it. The main example I can think of is office buildings where nobody is working at night or on the weekend, but the lights are still on. Turning the lights off help reduce the glow slightly and also helps the environment too. Better designed street lights would be good too.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
those horrid yellow street lights use far less engergy and cause less light pollution in comparison to standard lights.
I have some fond memories from the week I spent houseboating with my cousins on Lake Powell. I slept on the top of the boat, and it was absolutely the clearest sky I've ever seen. Definitely much better than anything I've seen in the midwest, where I live. The only problem was the high walls blocked the sides of the sky.
I remember going out at night growing up in Florida and just lying on the ground gazing at the stars. It would be so clear and the stars would be bright. Then the county put in street lights and they ruined stargazing. About the only thing that spoiled it before the streetlights was the jets flying overhead, we lived a few miles from airport runways and one of the flight paths was over us. I especially loved watching rocket launches, we lived outside of Orlando and was about 50 miles from the cape.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Seeing the unadultered night sky has been a long time dream of mine. Is there any easy way (other than word-of-mouth knowledge) to find dark places in the US (or elsewhere) where one can go skygazing?
And yet how many of these same people are advocating reducing global warming (how many of them are driving a Prius :-)? All of this light (and especially wasted light radiating into space) is from burning something in power plants. Imagine how much reduction of CO2 would occur if we just turned off all of this unnecessary lighting of streets, parking lots, and buildings? At least I don't require all of these street lights, parking lot lights, and so forth...
Also, doesn't the big island of Hawaii have ordinances for light pollution? Maybe CONUS should follow their example...
After one earthquake knocked all the power out in Los Angeles, 911 was swamped with calls with people asking if the 'strange clouds in the sky' had caused the earthquake.
They were referring to the Milky Way, which most L.A. residents had never seen before.
I can't believe it. An interesting post. Two great links to two interesting subjects. Wow. Weird.
I don't respond to AC's.
This is a great idea. I love seeing the stars at night. I moved into college on August 25th and I am now in the middle of nowhere. I come from a city, so this is a drastic change for me. I lived on the edge of a city and when I looked in the direction of the city (SE), the sky was very bright and almost no stars were visible, but when I looked to the northeast, I could see some stars, although there was still a good bit of light. I notice a drastic difference between there and here in the mountains.
I'm all for controlling light pollution of the skies at night, but it will never happen. Many neighborhoods need street lights and inner-city places definitely need them. It's a wonderful idea, but it will never happen.
He clearly failed to teach you any manners.
About 17 years ago, when i was 13, i went camping up north in Algonquin park. And the first night, was the first time i ever seen the skies on a clear night without any light pollution (i grew up in the city, so never saw more than a half dozen stars or so on the best nights), i saw literally millions of stars. I always though the photos of the Milky Way were shot in space, but i could see it from where i was, and it was absolutely breathtaking. I can't even fully describe what it was like to just lay on my back and watch the skies. I could actually see shooting stars and even satellites creeping across the sky!
I had a decent Iridium satellite sighting tonite in Providence, RI. Right at zenith with the Summer Triangle, north to south with a nice big flare. The three stars were the only ones visible along with Jupiter, just before the sky went really dark. That said, the difference between here in the city and in the country in Maine is amazing. In a rural (but not Wild) area, the Milky Way is visible and full constellations readily visible.
As one friend's kids once exclaimed on a drive from city to country, "Mom! What are all those little lights in the sky??"
Reducing light pollution only makes sense, since electric light directed into the sky literally is wasted light.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Lighting in those situations may seem excessive, but it's often based on security concerns. Well-lit areas tend to see less crime. They ought to use shields and direct the photons down, but they probably can't turn them off without risking break-ins and whatnot.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
I grew up in a small town, and was used to driving on very dark roads. When I went to university, I went to the city. I borrowed a friends car once, and drove around for about 10 minutes before I realized that the headlights weren't on. I was so used to driving around on dark roads, that just the light from the street lights seemed like more than enough light to be driving.
This happens to me occasionally, I'll be somewhere and go to drive off and because the parking lot was lit up I'll forget to turn my headlights on. And the car having running lights doesn't help. Well they'll help other drivers, but they make it less likely I'll turn my headlights on.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Well, the point is that even in rural areas it's getting quite difficult to see the night sky. You must travel many, many miles from a big city to see much of a sky at all. Even in rural areas there is too much light pollution. There are compromise solutions, for example shields that prevent photons from streetlights from going *up* into the sky. This seems so obvious that it's amazing this is controversial at all. Just Fraking Do It.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
A 'war on light pollution' is a jihad of darkness!
Look, dude, it's like this. Chicks dig stars. Countless generations of guys got laid by showing chicks stars. What are you gonna do, now that you can't even see the stars? This is all about trying to help guys like you score. Get with the program. Shield your bloody lights.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
While I'm sure people in Central Park would enjoy the night sky, I empathize with their concern for safety and well lit areas certainly feel more secure. I am suggesting that they would need to travel for a bit in order to enjoy the night sky. Another words, the people who are trying to preserve the night sky aren't suggesting the cities turn out their lights, just shine their lights toward the ground instead of toward the sky. You can drive an hour or so from a small city to see a somewhat dark sky and still see a mighty glow from the cities direction. While I understand the glow can never be eliminated, it certainly can and should be reduced.
One aside - I am familiar with the wind farm being erected in one of the few remaining dark sky sites in the eastern United States. A few changes (like moving them a short distance or using red "safe" lights) would have made them astronomy friendly. While this may not seem important to many, the area was obviously a haven for astronomers from all over the area especially since the park has been working hard to make it even more friendly - like installing astronomical domes with electricity and renting them for a nominal fee. so it goes. end aside.
One final thought - even if there were no benefits like cost savings, energy savings, and better lighting, the idea of dark sky preservation is akin to other environmental concerns. Just because we don't all enjoy sloshing through wetlands or cutting our way through a rain forest doesn't mean those areas shouldn't be conserved. I say the same goes for the night sky. We may not all be awed by the glow of a full moon, a fiery meteor blazing through the sky, or just watching the twinkling of a million stars but we shouldn't take away the opportunity for all of us and future generations from seeing what many of us feel is the most amazing and spectacular thing imaginable: our universe.
Did I miss something? Why must a wind farm be illuminated? Last I heard wind works fine in the dark...
Wind ginnies, generators, need to be lit at night because of birds. Without the lights birds won't know they are there. And it they are high, there's risk to low flying planes.
Should there be a Law?
Probably what should be done is a place like Cape Cod should be declared a 'sacrifice area' and all buildings should be vacated and leveled, and wind farms built on it.
Build them off shore?
YES! Build wind farms off shore, just make sure the construction is environmentally responsible. Many of those who are against wind ginnies in the cape oppose them because they are perceived as an eyesore, yet many of them also say they're environmentalists, so long as it's not in their backyard.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I do live in Curitiba and I do remember that ~15 years ago you could quite a lot of stars during the night, enough to try to identify the constelations and stuff. Nowadays all you can see during the night is a reddish haze in the sky (due to the city's mercury lamps), the Moon, Venus and perhaps one and another star. When the weather is _very_ dry you may see perhaps more 5-6 stars.
Once, 10+ years ago, I was returning from Paraguay by bus and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere in a freak-long line (customs control). The line was completely stuck, I was feeling bored and went from the bus to take some fresh air. I remember that when I looked at the night sky I could see clearly the Via-Lactea, the sky was filled with stars and the whole thing seemed sort of colorful.. You could even see some meteorites/satellites/whatever passing by.
Man, that was an unique experience for a city guy. I guess it was only then I realised the point of appreciating the night sky people so often wrote about.
low pressure sodium or mercury vapor lighting are easiest to filter, high pressure is hard.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
What about people WALKING at night?
What about them?
they don't experience glair [sic] (no windshield)
Maybe if you'd RTFA you would know what glare is. Since you won't, let me help you:
"glare bombs": fixtures that cast much of their light sideways, into the eyes of passersby, or upward, into the sky
Nothing at all to do with windshields though I suppose windshields can magnify the effects of glare.
how do you propose they walk without streetlights?
You're the one who proposed that. The post you responded to mentioned reducing their illumination.
Streetlights were intended to reduce crime, and I'd say they do a pretty good job of that.
From the article:
Crawford pointed out a cluster of mailboxes across the street from his garage. The lighting near the mailboxes was of a type that Crawford calls "criminal-friendly": it was almost painful to look at, and it turned the walkway behind the boxes into an impenetrable void. "The eye adapts to the brightest thing in sight," he said. "When you have glare, the eye adapts to the glare, but then you can't see anything darker."
[...]
Much so-called security lighting is designed with little thought for how eyes--or criminals--operate. Marcus Felson, a professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, has concluded that lighting is effective in preventing crime mainly if it enables people to notice criminal activity as it's taking place, and if it doesn't help criminals to see what they're doing. Bright, unshielded floodlights--one of the most common types of outdoor security lighting in the country--often fail on both counts, as do all-night lights installed on isolated structures or on parts of buildings that can't be observed by passersby (such as back doors). A burglar who is forced to use a flashlight, or whose movement triggers a security light controlled by an infrared motion sensor, is much more likely to be spotted than one whose presence is masked by the blinding glare of a poorly placed metal halide "wall pack." In the early seventies, the public-school system in San Antonio, Texas, began leaving many of its school buildings, parking lots, and other property dark at night and found that the no-lights policy not only reduced energy costs but also dramatically cut vandalism.
So there you go. Street lights are good, but if they shine light directly in the eyes of people walking at night, then those people will be unable to see into the shadows, which would be a great place for a mugger to lurk. However, if those street lights are subdued to decent levels and designed to be free of glare then not only can you see your path but your eyes will also still be adjusted for the darkness and you're better able to see what's outside of a brilliantly lit area. There are other benefits too:
Calgary, Alberta, recently cut its electricity expenditures by more than two million dollars a year, by switching to full-cutoff, reduced-wattage street lights.
Reduce the power output of your street lights and save millions. Additionally:
Diminishing the level of nighttime lighting can actually increase visibility. In recent years, the California Department of Transportation has greatly reduced its use of continuous lighting on its highways, and has increased its use of reflectors and other passive guides, which concentrate luminance where drivers need it rather than dispersing it over broad areas. (Passive guides also save money, since they don't require electricity.) F.A.A.-regulated airport runways, though they don't use reflectors, are lit in a somewhat similar fashion, with rows of guidance lights rather than with high-powered floodlights covering broad expanses of macadam. This makes the runways easier for pilots to pick out at night, because the key to visibility, on runways as well as on roads, is contrast.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
-1, Wrong and Uninformed
/ 054b_exposure_light_and_exposure_values.htm#Light) You can see with a lot less light than you think you can, if you'd just turn out the damn lights.
People walking at night *do* experience glare. First off, lots of folks wear glasses. Secondly, the presence of streetlights, even assuming no stray reflections, *does* affect human vision by preventing the eye from becoming fully dark-adapted. Many lighting schemes actually make things worse by creating very uneven lighting patterns. The eye will wind up adjusting its levels based on those bright areas, and then be completely unable to see in the dark areas.
Naturally, anyone up to no good will be in those shadows where nobody can see, because their eyes are metering for the bright areas.
*Contrast*, not the absolute amount of light, is the real limiting factor here. Two examples:
I was out in the forest today and saw a bird land on a tree branch west of me, backlit by the setting sun. I couldn't tell what it was; it appeared completely black to me because my eyes were adjusted to the huge amount of light coming from the western sky. I can, however, override my camera's automatic exposure setting, and was able to get a picture (at ISO 100, fyi). There was plenty of light to see by, there was just too much light coming from what I didn't want to see. Your eyes don't have an exposure override.
You can also see quite well in a whole hell of a lot less light than you think. I've been in situations where moonlight is actually bright enough to be dazzling (compared to the previous starlight when the moon was obscured); starlight is even enough to see where you're going by.
Starlight is 512 times dimmer than a streetlit street; moonlight is 64 times dimmer. (Reference: http://www.photokaboom.com/photography/learn/tips
Also, studies have been done that show that, when streetlights are removed from neighborhoods, crime actually goes down. Why? Because there are no shadows to hide in, and, if it's really that dark, the boogeyman (who's much less common than you think) won't be able to see you either without a flashlight. My neighborhood is unlit and is in a city with a pretty high crime rate (Tucson, Arizona); I've never felt unsafe because of the lack of streetlights.
Benefits of turning off the lights, since you asked:
1) It saves power. Gobs of power.
2) People can enjoy the natural world, and possibly learn something in the process.
3) Less damn glare, helps drivers and walkers (who can see just fine by moonlight/starlight
4) Astronomy.
5) It has been hinted at that excessive artificial lighting at night screws up people's circadian rhythms and might be responsible for certain sleep disorders, fatigue, depression, etc. This hasn't been shown conclusively yet, of course, and in any case looking at a 14" LCD like I am now is far worse.
The only reason they cause less light pollution is that they are nearly monochromatic, so the astronomers can notch-filter their telescopes and kill most of the pollution.
Doesn't mean it's not there, or not ugly.
In the most norther regions of Finland people can live many weeks in constant polar night.
What's worse is the Midnight Sun. I spent 3 weeks during the winter in Alaska and it never did get real dark, but I'd rather that than it always being light out.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Slightly off topic, but... Some of those horrid yellow lights have another little problem which could probably be dealt with but isn't in some places. That problem is that they are so close to the color and intensity of a yellow traffic light that they "camouflage" yellow traffic lights.
... that is until it "suddenly" turns red and results in people jamming on their brakes.
On one major street that I drive on at nights sometimes, you have to learn to remember where you saw a green light and, when you glance back (from scanning the sides of the road and your mirrors like one should), remember where it was - because if it's turned yellow, you can't quickly pick it out from all the yellow street lights - it just looks like suddenly a signal that you recall having seen is no longer there
Once you learn to remember where the signals are because you drive the street regularly, it's not so bad - but it's quite disconcerting the first few times and certainly detracts attention from other elements of your driving even once you learn to compensate for it.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Ban them all I say, or at least dim them 90% which would probably increase visibility and reduce glare.
Lighting in those situations may seem excessive, but it's often based on security concerns. Well-lit areas tend to see less crime.
Lighting doesn't help make it safer:
"Business owners will often tell you they need these lighting levels for security (though there have been no studies actually proving that light at night makes us more secure)". "There are no good scientific studies that convincingly show the relationship between lighting and crime. In some cases, lighting seems to deter crime and it makes people feel more secure, but in reality they may be just as secure without the lighting".
FalconShould there be a Law?
One answer is to only run 1/3 of the lights at any given time and randomly change which 1/3 is on. Tests have shown that this tends to REDUCE crime. When the lights are always on, criminals can see where the dark places are and hide there. With random lights, their nice dark hiding place can light up like a parking lot without warning. To a criminal, a light that could come on at any moment is as bad or worse than an always on light.
It's a fairly easy way to save a lot of electricity and help with light pollution. Bonus points if a "scream sensor" immediatly lights the area fully. Double bonus if the surrounding lights light up in an arrow pattern so a police helicopter can spot a problem area visually.
>> The object of security lighting is to see the criminal while not letting the criminal see you,
Ahh.. but I am a criminal. And I have my cloaking device on!
Curses! With all these bright security lights on, I cannot see you!
Foiled again!
.
- aqk
F U
Plenty of zero light from man up here. Jump on a plane and come on up, the Polar Bears stalk people without hesitation. :-)
So bring your camera.
What about people WALKING at night? they don't experience glair (no windshield) how do you propose they walk without streetlights?
There are such things as flashlights. I used to run at night, well early morning before the sun came up, and I never needed lights.
Streetlights were intended to reduce crime, and I'd say they do a pretty good job of that.
If that's what you think you're wrong. There are no good scientific studies that convincingly show the relationship between lighting and crime. In some cases, lighting seems to deter crime and it makes people feel more secure, but in reality they may be just as secure without the lighting.
And the benefit of turning off the lights is what? People in cities will be able to see the stars better? If you want to see the stars, move out to the country!
Moving out to the country to see the night sky is no option as city lights can be seen 100 miles away from the city.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Like what? saving the planet!??! Stupid
On the big list of things to worry about this is about a 3. As for the insects that are "sucked out of habitat" negatively effecting rural ecosystems... The animals per square mile is a lot higher in cities/suburbs so it is my opinion that the light pollution vacuum effect on insects is actually beneficial by providing sustenance for animals in our man-made ecosystems. :)
Of all the pollution issues that need to be addressed, "light" pollution is really a bit of a stretch. Alright, turning off a few lights or having *giggle* "dark sky friendly" light (or whatever they are called)seems to wander into the realm of the absurd and make itself comfortable. Let me see... Ummm... You have an educational system that place their main focus and concern on how the students feel about themselves instead of focusing on academics and whose standards are so low that the schools are now graduating young adults who barely have the mental acuity to work a fry cooker at the local fast food joint but feel ok about themselves and we as a people should be concerned about the lights we use in our homes and streets as a form of pollution? This is not an issue or a cause to be taken seriously. So it seems that the logic here is: "let us all use "dark sky friendly" lights so we cannot see the real pollution and this will all go away and seem like a bad dream. I believe that we can find better issues to deal with than "light pollution". It is similar to going to an emergency room with a gunshot wound to the chest and complaining about a hangnail. Priorities people... Priorities.
Thank you for listening to this rant.
It's all fun and games until someone takes an eye out!
I recently spent the better part of a year in Israel- on a Kibbutz. If you walked out about a mile or so, it was like walking through the most inky darkness. It wasn't frightening, that darkness. It was more like a soft, velvety embrace. Warm, in the desert. I'd look up and realize that part of me had been missing since I was a child, living in rural Connecticut. I saw the stars- and drank deep of the wonder of just looking up. The sky went on forever, I could see the wisps of the Milky Way- things I only really remembered seeing in books during high-school. Things forgotten from childhood. That vision, in the sky, the tiny pricks of brightness in that velvet-softness that wrapped around me was a greater spiritual experience than visiting Jerusalem and the Western Wall for me. Now, I miss it. I live in Columbia, South Carolina- and the sky here is not so full of stars.
It's an illusion. There are no good scientific studies that convincingly show the relationship between lighting and crime. In some cases, lighting seems to deter crime and it makes people feel more secure, but in reality they may be just as secure without the lighting.
FalconShould there be a Law?
On an all-night *yawn* trip from Salt Lake City to San Diego, I took this photo at the rest area in the desert between Baker and Barstow, California, looking in the direction of Las Vegas. Once I found refuge from the glare bombs surrounding the parking lot, I looked up and saw more stars than I've ever seen before... but Vegas and L.A. were huge glowing domes on the horizon. I don't think there's anywhere in the continental U.S. that is totally free from light pollution.
motherfucker, quit driving.
Since 2003, the stars once above this dumpy apartment have almost disappeared as runaway housing inflation has forced all the land 2 B built over. Since no-one can see the stars anymore, the likely effect is less interest in what's out there.
You don't need a scientific study to figure some of this stuff out. My bullshit detector lights up whenever some random dothead posts a quote from a random website to Slashdot that "no such studies have been done". People who claim no such studies have been done usually have no clue exactly how many graduate students there are in the world (a lot... I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that more than one had independently studied the relative incidence of cold and flu among two groups of people, one of which pluck their nose hairs when they get too long, the other which trim). Someday Google will make it easier to find and evaluate studies on all manner of things. For now, it's a bit harder than it should be.
And sure, sometimes no good studies have been done on a random topic or another, even important topics that might surprise you. Freakonomics (chapter 4) had an interesting discussion of the measurable affect of various public policy on crime rates, and it appears that the topic was not well studied and certainly the results of the studies which had been done were not well synthesized. As much energy and money as it receives, you would think that would be studied more rigorously and more often. Alas, it is not.
One moment please while I google for you... Here's a nice (rigorously referenced) summary which draws upon several studies, and which includes a section on lighting, which has been studied and shown to be effective as a measure in reducing crime. Presuming Canadian criminals do not have some unique national aversion to well-lit areas at night, then these results might be of interest to others, eh?
EVIDENCE-BASED CRIME PREVENTION: SCIENTIFIC BASIS, TRENDS, RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CANADA
On the other hand, sure, maybe most of these studies are too localized, and what's happening on the larger scale is a shell game: a fixed amount of crime in a city is moving from well-lit areas to less-well-lit areas.
In any case, I'm definitely in favor of shielding and motion sensors and reduction of night lighting that's not useful. However, security lighting is a real concern, and it entails more than simply crime, it's really about insurance liability and inventory loss. Business owners will tell you that gangs of kids don't hang out in their parking lots at night as often (or at all) when they are well lit. They will also tell you that incidents of break-ins went down after they started lighting up the place at night. In some situations, their insurance companies may require certain lighting improvements, and you can bet the actuaries have some idea of the cost/benefit of lighting in certain situations. Installing and running lights isn't free, after all, and it's quite likely that businesses wouldn't do it if they were not pretty well convinced that it's effective at saving them money in some way which exceeds the cost. They might be wrong, but that wouldn't be for a complete lack of evidence supporting their current belief.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
will have (flash)lights.
And when someone spots a flashlight turned on they report it. Well they might beat the person to a pulp first, like that Indian in AZ after 911.
FalconShould there be a Law?
A quick Google search shows that there seem to be studies about lighting and crime. Sure the topic probably merits additional study, but discounting the work that has been done based on an unsourced sentence leading a wikipedia article probably isn't helping further the discussion.
Here are a couple papers which each include several references:
THE EFFECT OF BETTER STREET LIGHTING ON CRIME AND FEAR: A REVIEW
EVIDENCE-BASED CRIME PREVENTION: SCIENTIFIC BASIS, TRENDS, RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CANADA
I'm all in favor of a darker sky, but we are not going to win many converts if we keep lying about something that can be so trivially debunked.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Stupid ass
Someone standing in the pool of light cast by a streetlight is a great crime target. They're a target because of the way most streetlights are designed, which over-illuminates patches of ground while creating solid shadows (because essentially they act like a point source) elsewhere. Someone standing in the lit area can't see a damn thing that's in the dark areas; someone that's hiding in a shadow can see everything. Short of lighting our cities like that Terminex commercial (you know, the one where the people in the house had the snow-blindness goggles on?), you're better off going for less illumination: lower-intensity, even lighting, or lights that are triggered by motion, IR, or sound sensors.
Also, you don't mug someone carrying a hefty club in their hand. Even if they don't know what they're doing, it's easy to get clocked in the head with a MagLite and end up in a world of hurt. Someone walking around, talking on a cellphone would be a much better target.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Many of the streetlights installed in Chicago go back to the '50s & '60s. While the technology has changed (i.e. the efficiency of lights), the city has only started replacing these lights--often spaced 12.5 feet apart on opposing sides--on a 3-lane street! The logic has been that the city spends $x/streetlight on electricity, so instead of decreasing the wattage (for the same number of lumens), they have used the same amount of watts for more lumens! (More light has to be safer...)
There are some streets in the city that might see one car/hour, yet are lit brighter than a suburban car dealership lot!
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
A quick Google search shows that there seem to be studies about lighting and crime. Sure the topic probably merits additional study, but discounting the work that has been done based on an unsourced sentence leading a wikipedia article probably isn't helping further the discussion.
Before replying I did use Google. I found the Wiki article by Googling lights night security studies, it's number 4 in the results. The first result is a blog entry about how the streetlight outside the window disturbs sleep. The next two are sellers of lights. The fifth, "The Issues surrounding lighting" has a section, "How lighting can aid crime", explaining exactly how lights help crime. It's interesting the first one says most crimes happen in daylight. Streetlights definitely don't help there.
FalconShould there be a Law?
>The object of security lighting is to bathe otherwise dark places in light
>so that criminals will not feel secure in their ability to commit crime unseen.
Last time I checked, criminals needed light in order to be able to see (and therefore commit crimes)too.
The security lighting ultimately aids, not hampers, the criminals in commiting their crimes.
If the stars should appear one night in
a thousand years, how would men believe
and adore, and preserve for many generations
the remembrance of the city of God?"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If our lighting trend continues, will our civilization go the way of Lagash?
The answer for light pollution is LED streetlights: directional light, lumen efficacy already past fluorescent lamps, also possible to choose better wavelength to aid scotopic vision
Pat Mullins has some articles about the subject.
STOP "Making war" on every damn thing you people can come across. When you take out the garbage, do you make war on it aswell?
Ah, but the first citation is by Kate Painter, a criminologist who lives with (maybe not now), with the MD (Patrick somebodyorother) of Urbis lighting - one of the largest street lighting companies in Europe.
She may not be impartial.
Steve
Dave Matthews made satellites sound like such a wonderful thing, but with the naked eye it's hard to point out stars from satellites anymore. In fact satellites are so much brighter than stars its where people focus their attention on and probably think they're stars.
God spoke to me.
I've always wondered why US traffic lights tend have yellow cases, while UK ones are always black. Guess this might be (part of?) the reason.
I heard a story once I believe to be true from someone in Japan.
It resonates with me because I am silly enough/fortunate/unfortunate to have an 8 inch Cassegrain in Tokyo, probably one of the brightest places around.
The story is that children who grew up in the city, where one is only able to see a handful of stars, did not belive that the starscapes one sees in movies and so on are real. They thought they were fake, because the real sky isn't like that.. there couldn't be that many stars.
Perhaps taking city kids periodically into dark areas would teach them about science, nature and the importance of dark skies. From 50 min. away from New York I can see star scapes and maybe the milky way but nothing like what's really out there.
I adopted these measures as a small contribution to this very problem.
It isn't much - but every little bit counts, and I have noted a slight decrease in my electric bill.
However many of my neighbors still burn out door lights all night long.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The peak demand occurs in the day time, so all of those power stations would be otherwise doing nothing at night, hence the massive amount of street lighting.
Of course you have to pay for the coal, but the bulk of the cost of coal-generated electricity is in the plant and not the fuel -- natural gas is the other way in that the plant is cheap but the fuel is expensive. And burning that coal adds to global warming and mercury pollution and asthma in kids from the fine particles, but that is not figured in to the cost of lighting up the night.
The other thing about fixtures is that while commercial fixtures are going to those flat Fresnel lens fixtures that minimuz light trespass, municipal lights are slow to adopt that approach, and residential lights and farm yard lights are a poor excuse.
Yes, you can get mail-order fixtures that are better, but you have to be motivated to seek out catalog mail-order places that have them, and you are getting that fixture sight unseen. The vast quantity of outdoor fixtures at Lowe's, Home Depot, Menards, Ace Hardware, True Value, and so on are the bad kind. I defy anyone to find a sky friendly fixture through any of those retail channels.
There is almost no excuse for not having indoor CFL's because even Wal Mart is pushing them, but when they first came out, you had to hunt high and low for them, they were expensive, and the Lights of America brand were unreliable and intolerant of all but the most ventilated fixtures or lamps. I am not suggesting outlawing non-sky friendly outdoor fixtures, but there has to be some way to get sky-friendly lights into the retail channels.
The human race is the most gorgeous noctiluminescent species on the planet, and we want to kill that? Get a life! Dark sky is what Hubble is for.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
What about if the entire city's lights light up in a marquee display that can be seen from the moon reading "Mugging victim needs assistance here!" ? Brownie points there? No? Dang!
I hate printers.
If you're buying a new car, consider opting for the Xenon HID headlamps ("fake" HIDs are worthless, as they actually cut light output). The extra ~$1000 premium is completely worth it (my last two vehicles have had Xenon lights and I'll never buy another new car without them).
As someone who has driven dark country roads for years, I'd like to see you and everyone else who buys those blasted things fined. I've always thought they should be illegal.
I don't think you appreciate how blinding those things are to see coming the other way at night. I usually end up not really being able to see anything other than the lines on the road for a few seconds after passing (even when the owner manages to remember to turn off their brights). I've always worried that I'm going to get in an accident after passing someone using those things.
Additionally, they really hurt. Why exactly can't they make bright headlights that don't rely on providing all the illumination from a very small, intense point? Some diffusion would go along way towards not hurting other drivers.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It's funny how the achievements of the last generation (or even decade) are the Things That Need Fixing of the new.
/. poster above said, it was pretty bad; now it's just somewhat less so - you sure as heck can't do serious stargazing even now, though it's probably doubled the number of nights you can see the Milky Way. Not that most people notice, since our clearest skies are in the winter and few brave the cold to watch for more than a few minutes.
I remember the night sky in Calgary as a child (say 40 years back) had a lot more stars, just because the city was so much smaller (1M now; maybe 250,000 then - we're one of the fastest-growing in N. America) and there were so fewer streetlights shining up on the clouds.
But we were indeed extra "bad" for light emissions intensity as measured in kwH/km^2 too, not just sheer size - as this sat. photo on our own website shows:
http://content.calgary.ca/CCA/City+Hall/Business+U nits/Roads/Street+Lights/Satellite+Photograph+-+Fu ll+Size.htm
It made me remember that the "Chief Commissioner" (we now say "CEO") of the municipality when I started working there about 20 years back was a former electrical engineer named George Cornish; and that his bio included him winning an award for championing Calgary getting one of the best street-lighting systems in the world during his time at the (then City-owned) electric light department. Likely our formerly huge 32,100 kWh/km^2 emissions were a byproduct - not seen as a bad thing at the time.
When we brought in the change to the streetlighting, the ad campaign emphasized the savings - money and carbon both - not the improvement to the free astronomy show.
I can't find anything on the web about how much we improved the kwH/km^2, or a new satellite photo for before/after comparison; and no figures on what our "Bortle" number was before/after, either; the available info is all about the money. (5 year payback!)
I'm afraid I can't call the difference dramatic - if it wasn't as bad as "only six stars visible" as one
The astronomy benefit probably goes to the National Parks like Banff that are over 120km away - we were probably reaching the size where we were affecting the "seeing" even there!
The difference to the streets is probably more dramatic, literally - residential streets have gone from roughly even lighting almost anywhere you stood (which is what I guess got Mr. Cornish his award) to the "look" that cities older than Calgary mostly have, at least in older neighbourhoods - pools of light under the streetlights, soft chiaroscuro pools of darkness between. (I remember seeing this in New York on a visit in the 70's, even in Manhattan itself, and thinking with surprise "I thought that look was just in old film noir with Bogart under the streetlight with a cigarette". I had to visit several older cities before I realized it was common, and that Calgary was the unusual one.)
Now, there's a corner near my house where it's dark enough at night to not be able to see an icy spot on the sidewalk if there is one, so now you tend to memorize these during the day (since night starts at 5PM in late December). That's about the only real bitching though, on the whole I wouldn't go back - it's also nice to have a lot less of the glare and blinding than there used to be...and it's not just me; there have been few to no complaints about the change, it's certainly not an issue ever mentioned in the news.
When you think about it, the vaunted $2M/year is $2/citizen; and most people would pay $2/year for the convenience of "good lighting" if it really made a big difference in their day, so the "savings" only work if the change in comfort/convenience is almost imperceptible. Partly, the change isn't that big, and partly - I'm the guy complaining about the invisible icy spot because I WALK EVERYWHERE,
Always wanting to take away my neon "bud light" sign.....
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We should be thinking about noise pollution before talking about light pollution.
And yes I'm talking about those fucking boom-cars that can be heard from 10 blocks away... "BOOM-BOOM-BOOM". Bunches of fucking anti-social assholes.
We got laws that require your car to have a muffler so that it's more silent, yet there is no laws against 10K Watts subwoofers that can annoy hundreds of people at once.
I know it's late, but I had to post.
The dark night sky is a thing of beauty and wonder. I live in the midwest, and I don't know of anywhere you can go to get a useful view of the sky.
Even if you find somewhere without much light, the pollution, haze, and humidity destroy all chance of a good view.
Humidity is the only one we should have to deal with
My wife is from Brazil, and I love going there - because of the sky. On a recent trip, I noticed that even in her home town, I could stand in the middle of the city, under a street lamp - and all I had to do was block the light to get a wonderful view of the milky way, and zillions of stars. I don't know of anywhere I can go to see a sky even that good in the US. And when we drove out of town, away from the lights.... damn, I LOVE that sky.
Those who were looking for dark skies: http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/1438/earth_lights_lr g.jpg
Imagine returning from a vacation to 900 W of light shining on your home as your eccentric neighbor fears the dark. Nine 100 W compact fluorescent lights on three posts shining through all hours of the night. The girl friend was so proud they were saving energy and I made it clear the lights were unwelcome. What do they do, only run them 6 hours a night. It was bad enough that I didn't need lights in my home and I live in the country.
There was no part of my 1.7 acres of land that wasn't impacted by their callous landscaping idea. Even during an aurora event in 2006, when asked to turn off the lights, they turned them off for 5 minutes, turned them back on and drove away.
When asked to minimize the lights (i.e. only use them when needed), they installed 60 W equivalent lights. So, the answer, buy the guy's business' abandoned web domain and put up a protest page. After 15 months of these annoying lights, they went off within 10 days of the site going up and were eventually removed.
Do I have a relationship with my neighbor now? No! The loss of privacy and their lack of respect for their neighbors has greatly soured my desire to interact with them. Of course, I was the only one to complain which makes me wrong?
Anyone need a web domain?
Get your Kicks on Route 66
I imagine that most businesses don't enjoy paying for their all night, every night, floodlit parking lots, etc. They do so because it's cheaper than settling a lawsuit for negligence if a crime or injury occurs in an unlit area. A Google search on "unlit premises negligence" reveals thousands of lawyers eager to take such a case. Lights are cheap insurance against such suits.
Which really annoys those of us who really relish some good, old fashioned darkness.
In 2005, many South Floridians got a really beautiful night sky after Hurricane Wilma hit. The power was out over quite a large region for a few days, and a cold front came through right after the hurricane, which cleared up the sky.
Growing up in Florida friends of mine and had this saying about telling true Floridians from transplants. When a hurricane comes along "while the true Floridian says it's tyme to batten down the hatches the transplant throws his arms up in the air and yells 'let's get out of here'". Back then you could set your watch by the rain from late spring to early fall, every day if it weren't already raining at six pm you'd see a wall of water coming at you. Sometimes it'd only rain a few minutes and sometimes it's rain for an hour or more. I went into the army after graduating high school and when I got out and went back it didn't rain like that anymore.
It was the first time I have ever been able to clearly see the Milky Way from my home. Any other time, I have to travel halfway across the state into the Everglades to see it as well as I could those nights.
We used to go camping on the St Johns River or to the intercoastal waterway area near Cocoa Beach. The stars would great then.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Properly installed and adjusted HIDs will never blind oncoming traffic. If you're being blinded, it's most likely cars with incorrectly installed and adjusted aftermarket HID kits, which should be illegal. Properly configured HID lights will have:
- a sharp vertical cut-off pattern to prevent light from spilling up into the eye-line of oncoming traffic,
- built-in washers, to clear the lens of dirt and surface contamination that may cause light to deflect,
- an auto-levelling system such that lights will not blind oncoming drivers when going up a hill or over a speed bump, and
- a driver-side light that is adjusted such that it has a lower vertical cut-off than the passenger side, and is angled in towards the passenger side. If you shine your lights against a wall, the cut-off pattern should look something like _/-- from the driver to passenger side, and the cut-off should be very sharp.
If you're installing an aftermarket kit, in general you're not going to get items 2 and 3, which is a big deal. Even so, the installer can configure items 1 and 4 to make sure that the light has minimal impact on other drivers will maximizing the benefit for the driver. Also, not all cars are made equal. An HID configuration on a low-slung sports car (like my car) must be completely different than on a high-riding SUV (the sports car can havethe lights at a shallower cut-off angle because the car is below oncoming drivers' sightline already, thus providing more light downfield).Also, high beams will blind you whether they're halogen or xenon. There's no solution to that one aside from removing high beam capabilities from vehicles. (If you do that, how am I to signal that I want to pass you and you're hogging the left-hand lane?)
Criminals love the absence of light. Light, especially when activated suddenly, scares them away. Which do you prefer, violent crime or pretty -- useless -- stars?
It's the massive floodlights illuminating the 1,000-foot-tall antennae on top of the buildings that are turned off at night for the birds. The little winky bits remain active because of heavy air traffic in the area.
That was my precise point. It's the big lights that are the danger and not small blinking beacons. Chicago has, or had, big lights however wind ginnies have small blinking lights.
FalconShould there be a Law?
... and a much longer time that some people who are touting light pollution as a recent phenomena are willing to admit.
To start out here I want don't want to dismiss that perhaps the growth of some cities, particular in the American south-west, isn't causing problems for observatories, or even for ordinary people to be able to appreciate a star filled night without some significant sources of light pollution being visible from nearly anywhere you go.
What I'm objecting to here is the statement "In Galileo's time, nighttime skies all over the world would have merited the darkest Bortle ranking, Class 1."
I don't think this is the case. Street lighting has been something done in urban environments since from about Roman Imperial times, and certainly during renaissance era... meaning the time of Galileo. Hear me out before your do a knee jerk reply on this.
Larger cities have usually had some source of light, if only kerosene or tallow but sometimes even more. Gas lighting was very common in the 1500's and in some areas even earlier. In Moorish Spain (before the reconquista making Spain a Christian country) some chroniclers noted how the light from Iberian cities glowed like a constellation of stars across the hills. In other words, it wasn't just a single lone candle or two but whole urban environments where there were substantial sources of unshielded light being used to illuminate the city streets and in turn the night time sky.
The point being here, I think it is reasonable to conclude that there were some urban environments even before the birth of Galileo where the visibility of the stars would have been significantly diminished, and certainly not a "Bortle ranking, Class 1" even if you were some distance from that city.
Again, I'm not suggesting that electric lighting hasn't had a significant impact on urban lighting, with certainly Times Square in New York City setting the standard of the worst light pollution possible with perhaps "The Strip" in Las Vegas being in close competition. Certainly suggesting that you can see an astronomical event at Times Square in NYC such as a comet (it has happened) is suggesting that nearly anybody can see what is going on. But keep in mind that electric lighting is not exactly something just created or discovered this past year either. Large scale urban lighting has been going on in Europe and North America for well over a century now, and even "developing countries" have been using electric lighting for decades.
The point being is that those who look fondly to the "good old days" often forget what really happened in the past, and to make arguments about what sorts of things happened in the past and misrepresent that past for the sake of argument is doing both a disservice to your argument in the long run and demonstrating ignorance about the topic. It is clear that the primary poster about this really has no clue what urban conditions may have been like during the time of Galileo and perhaps even earlier. That a star-filled sky where you can touch the center of the Milky Way is an awesome sight, and something that many kids of today never get a chance to see is something I can agree to. That reasonable efforts that don't cost a large sum of money ought to be explored in terms of helping to curb light pollution I would agree as well. But don't go telling me this is a problem that existed only in the 21st Century and not earlier if you want to make this an effective argument to further the goal of allowing future generations to be able to see a star-filled sky.
Hi there,
This is my first posting here so be gentle.
I do a little astro photography.
I have three cameras, a Nikon D200, a Fuji S5 (with super CCD) and a Nikon film body F801. All three cameras have the same lens mount, which is very handy.
From time to time on a clear night, I setup a camera on a tripod in my Garden and leave the shutter open for anything from 20 secs to a min with a 50mm F1.8 standard lens with the camera pointed at the sky.
However, the weak starlight seems to swamped out by the strong, mostly, sodium street lighting. Before digitals were generally available, the only way to filter out this (mostly yellow) street light was to do multiple exposures using a selection of blue filters (80A, b or c) but this would attenuated the very weak starlight to the stage of being virtally useless.
In an ideal situation I would find some deserted location where there is minimal light pollution.....but I don't have a car and little spare time these days.
So, here is the big question....
Is there a clever bit of Free/cheap astronomical software that can do all the post image processing to filter out all the unwanted wavelengths of light.
I do not want to spend hours fiddling around with photoshop (I only have 5.5 and I can't justify £400-500 for the latest version anyway.
What I envisage is a piece of DSP/image processing software that will produce a bar-chart of the wavelengths seen by the sensor (I would probably have to shoot in RAW mode on the digital cameras) and then give me an option to take out/delete the unwanted wavelengths.
In ham radio they use digital signal processors with clever software to get voice/Morse code/Packet data out of the most terrible radio interference. Why can't this be done with light.
regards
Stephen Walters
G7VFY
07956-544202 my cell phone.
US traffic lights vary - seemingly on a regional basis. In urban areas in California, for example, traffic signals usually have black or rather dark green cases - and virtually never yellow ones. In some other parts of the country (and in some more rural areas of California) yellow cases seem to be more common. I don't know why this is - perhaps the yellow cases make the signals more visible in some adverse weather conditions?
(The signals I was specifically discussing happen to have dark cases rather than yellow ones.)
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
1) Have you noticed that two of the most important astronomical observatory sites in the world--the top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert--are designed to have minimal interference from light pollution?
2) This is why over the next 20-25 years we'll see more and more space-based telescopes operating--no worries about light pollution in space, that's to be sure (well, unless the telescope is pointed just too close to the Sun).
3) I think the next place where we'll see ground-based telescopes operating is the around the Great Australian Bight, where the star viewing conditions are considered by many to be better than even the Atacama Desert.
and the light pollution is such that on many days I can read a book (with difficulty)outside, and during xmass it is a lot easier. Granted it depends a lot on where in slc area.
I have actually complained about it recently because I was camping and I could barely see the milkyway, when as a kid in a small town in cali, I could see it easily despite having a street light next to our house.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
Don't help them to bury the light...
Bigger bonus if the lights can spell out the name of the perpetrator!
OK, so no truck would be seen, but your headlights aren't puke green, are they?
There's a Sky & Telescope article,
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/resources/darksky/3304011.html?page=4&c=y
written by John E. Bortle, which describes the scale. I'm guessing that he knows something about this Bortle scale.
While i consider my house in the inner-city, Class 9, the description doesn't cover it. I regularly observe from my driveway, which has a local street light, but which is across the street from a grocery store parking lot. I don't bring a flashlight, as there is enough light to find a lost contact lens.
But with an eight or ten inch scope, and an Oxygen 3 filter ($80 US), most nebulae are evident. You need the eight or so inches of aperture, since the filter rejects most light - it's a narrow band filter. M-16 (the Eagle Nebula) can be seen even right between those parking lot flood lights.
So, i often observe from the driveway because it takes the least time. And neighbors walking by sometimes ask what i'm doing, which allows me to show them. If i've forgotten something, it's right inside the house. If it's cold, i can warm up by going back inside. But also, i don't have to wait for my eyes to dark-adapt.
The worse light pollution of all comes from the Sun. When the Sun is up, it's hard to see much. I've only been able to see Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn when the Sun is up. Class 10, at least. And it seems to be up about half the time. I have a solar filter, but with it you can only see the Sun.
-- Stephen.
If so, then we definitely can't see where we're going.