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Help To Map Light Pollution
jcgam69 writes "October 1 marked the first day of the Great Worldwide Star Count, a half-month citizen science project that will harness thousands of observers across the globe to help map light pollution."
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The sample size will be way too small. And how are you going to map rural areas where no one lives? And how do you know that everyone is counting every star (and just once!)? A good idea in theory, and if the project's aim is simply to get the general public aware of how bad pollution is... I guess it's a plausible concept. But it's in no way accurate. I mean, what if it's cloudy? This seems like just another thing to do so people can say "harnessing the power of (insert any word for great number of people here) to (insert undoubtedly noble concept/idea here)." I mean, really, there's astronomers who do this, right?
As an amateur astronomer I always support these efforts, not so much because they truly add a lot of value as the potential PR they generate. I live in an extremely urban area and can only see planets and the very brightest stars. And the problem is that we tend to generate a lot of light pollution that is a waste. We don't just illuminate the areas that needs it, but throw off a lot of light pollution because our lights are not focused on the needed area. It's like the standard light in your house, you turn it on and it throws light everywhere even though you just needed it to read a book, it's a waste. I'm not a green fanatic, but it just makes economic sense to try and reduce and eliminate waste where it exists .... plus I really miss seeing the Milky Way.
How timely! I am planning to take a trip into Arizona or Colorado this winter *just* to see the unadultered night sky. I'm not entirely sure where to begin -- just drive randomly until i'm in complete darkness? Word of mouth? Any suggestions on how I can finally see the stars for once in my life?!
have you considered motion sensors? or IR sensors.. or radiowave sensors.. You'll have the best of all worlds...
- light when you need it (i.e. somebody is in the vicinity. Heck, the light suddenly popping on has more effect than the light being on continuously)
- no light when you don't need it (makes the light-pollution people happy)
- lower electricity bill
down sides..
- initial cost (couple bucks)
- initial installation (screwdriver and some healty common sense when it comes to dealing with electrical wiring)
There are many studies and none of them over the years have shown any correlation between lights and crime. There are many ways you can use lights and still cut down on light pollution. You can use motion sensors, you can use full cutoff shields so the light doesn't go into the sky. These are just a few.
The idea that more light = safer is false. In some ways, it actually allows criminals to plan how they're going to break into something. Not to mention, if a light is always on, most people just ignore it whereas if a light is triggered by motion it will attract a lot more attention.
It messes with human and animals circadian rhythm.
Your eyes see better in the dark when they've adjusted and when you move from really bright to dark places.. or vice versa, it takes your eyes a while to adjust. At night, you shouldn't have to do this. This is a safety issue.
It's a waste of energy.
It effects animal migrations.
Light pollution can seriously affect ground-based astronomy. If scientific progress is something you don't care about, I can see why you'd think it irrelevant.
Considering a lot of light pollution is mostly a matter of inefficiency... Since you think it's a choice between light pollution and crime, I have to assume that you think that shooting vast amount of light into the sky somehow feeds the moon god, who in turn stops crime out of gratitude.
Seriously, a big part of the problem is with street lights that don't point all of there light toward the ground. Sure, a really well lit ground will bounce some light back up, but some lights literally just shine right up into the sky.
Also, in many cases excessively bright lights are used, which results in pools of blinding brilliance with pools of pitch black between them. In that case, the solution to make people feel safer is not to make the light brighter, but more even (and possibly dimmer) so that you can't hide in the harsh shadows.
Even if the facilities here aren't cutting edge, what if the next Galileo would have been born here but never gets into Astronomy because the facility was made useless just by people pointlessly sending light into the sky?