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One Fifth of World's Population Can't See Milky Way At Night
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Cosmos Magazine: "Light pollution has caused one-fifth of the world's population — mostly in Europe, Britain and the US — to lose their ability to see the Milky Way in the night sky.
'The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage,' said Connie Walker, and astronomer from the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.
Yet 'more than one fifth of the world population, two thirds of the US population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way.'"
And then they built that super Wal-Mart 1/4 mile from my house. Now I am lucky if I can see Sirus or anything of a less than amazing magnitude.
Poor kids, I wish they could see what they are missing.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
Oh, the Milky Way at night,
Vastly over-rated sight.
Better still the suds of morn,
By which unsightly stubble's shorn.
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Living in northern Philadelphia, I'm lucky if I can make out enough bright stars to see Orion or Ursa Major, let alone something like the Milky Way...
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Don't you just have to look up to see it?
I live in Los Angeles. One day I went up to Yosemite to hike Half-Dome. It's a long hike, so we started at 3 in the morning. When we broke out of the trees, I looked up and shit my pants.
I looked up and said to a friend. This town is so corrupt even the stars have left it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
2/5ths of Americans can't see their own toes.
When I originally moved into my house years ago, I was surrounded by farmland, but in the past few years my area got built up with Shopping Centers, Neighborhoods and whatnot. The light pollution has become so bad that I don't even bother bringing out my telescope anymore on summer nights. The convenience of having many stores close is nice, but everything it comes with price and I think this one is a little bit too much. I originally moved to the area to get out of Philadelphia, now it's not much different in terms of the sky.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
I just recently got a new DSLR camera so now I'm playing around with all it's fancy features. I figured I would see if I could get a picture of the Milky Way from my deck in Cambridge MA. After processing the heck out of it I got about 20-30 stars... it was really kinda sad.
from the light pollution to really realize what you're missing. The two times I have been been in awe of the night sky were,
1. In the middle of the Atlantic on a boat
2. In the desert in Mauritania
Also on your astronomical to do list, head to the southern hemisphere. There's a whole different set of stars there. (Besides Nicole Kidman)
I can almost always spot the Milky Way.
It's usually right next to the Snickers.
No, I won't continue with the Texas theme song.
But I will say that having lived on Nantucket Island, New York City, and now California's Central Valley, I definitely appreciate going back to the sandbar and seeing what a night sky really looks like. I did spend a night in the Badlands of South Dakota -- and I think that is the most stars I've ever seen...it was like the entire sky wasn't black with pinpoints of light, but more of a fuzzy white with brighter spots. Truly amazing until the buffalo attack... (kidding)
No, no.... Look *UP*, stupid!
I live less than 10 minutes from NYC, and all the light pollution that it emits carries over to my house and you can barely see any stars at night.
A few years ago, I became interested in astronomy and bought a telescope. After spending an entire day assembling the thing when I looked through it at night I couldn't see a damn thing; only the moon\. It was one of the most depressing days of my childhood.
The sad part is as long as New York is New York, I won't be able to see the stars. But hey, maybe the economy will get so bad that Wall Street closes up and everyone moves out :)
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
Photons are not pollution in my opinion.
I love stargazing and space in general, but some of these folks are bigger hysterics than the peak oil folks.
I see this as the phoniest of the phony baloney eco-greeny flavor of the month stuff we are getting from every corner.
Where you can show where humans are adversy effected health-wise and balance it against the very sound reasons we light shit up, I'm okay with it.
But calling it pollution is about as unsciency as oil "addictions" and other nonsense we are flooded with more and more.
...Living far away from civilized centers, like in the center of African forests and deserts or on top of mountains and other places which have not yet been reached by the black asphalt snakes of progress.
How happy they are to have the Milky Way as their roof and the sound of crickets as their entertainment.
I am certain that they would never trade such freedom and comfort for those ghastly artificially illuminated roads, constant hum of the civilization and such trivialities as proximity to health-care and formal education.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
100 Hidden Constellations He Craves!!!
Look great to the naked eye!
Steven Hawking - fun and fearless!
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
At least we can still see the Triffids...for now.
Speaking of the bright side, keep your eyes peeled for bright comets.
No, wait, scratch that.
I mean, scratch the directive, not your eyes. Just keep your eyes down.
coding is life
Wait, you can see the milky way at night?
All the new convenience stores they've built that shed all the light, also stock Milky Way. I prefer Snickers, though.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Well at least with the constelations becoming hard to see, we might see a decline in astrology.
Though it's an incredible lose to not be able to go outside and just gaze up at the cosmos, with it's billions and billions of stars and galaxies, and to just feel awed by the beauty of nature.
At the end of the last ice age, when the channel flooded. Or at the end of last week, when the election results came out.
Thanks, I'm here all week. That'll probably be longer than Gordon Brown.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If we could start getting in the habit of focusing our lights down through the use of hoods and lamp covers we could probably make fast, cheap improvements on this problem. Light is wasted going up, with the exception of cool satellite shots showing the Earth at night. I for one would love to be able to see more than magnitude 1 and brighter stars from my rooftop in Brooklyn.
Not only does God definitely play dice, but He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen. -Hawking
I did not see the Milky Way until I was in my early twenties. I was on a camping trip and looked up at the night sky and commented how many stars you could see except for that one cloud in the way, and someone explained it wasn't a cloud. I was seeing the Milky Way for the first time.
Just last week, I explained to my wife that the "funny looking star area" that they see in Titanic when they are taking the ice bath really was the Milky Way galaxy...and that it really did look like that when you get in some real "country dark" - something she has not ever seen...and something that I have not seen in years. City life is good...but we miss out on some of the most beautiful things out there!
1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
Camping in the high desert of northwestern Nevada years ago, the call of nature awoke me about 2am. I crawled out of the tent to a moonless night that revealed a sky literally full of stars - I couldn't find a dark spot anywhere. The Milky Way looked like a river of light stretching from horizon to horizon.
I may never travel to space, but I think I know what it looks like now.
What?
I take issue with a number of things here...
A) Is this 1/5th immobile? Can they not hop a commuter train to the suburbs or something? I'd really like to know. I know that when I go out to see Dad in Wyoming the difference is absolutely noticeable, but I've always assumed that the same could be gained by finding some road-side location out in 'the sticks'.
B) When is light 'pollution', and are we okay with (what I assume is) a situational definition of that word? Is light 'pollution' when it comes out of your headlights? Or only when Wal-Mart uses it to light their parking lot? Is there some measurable standard of 'enough' light, and the excess is 'pollution'? Or is it only 'pollution' when you want it to be dark? I'd honestly like to know...
C) What does 'the arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage' mean, exactly? Are we really weighing the advantages of light at night against 'natural heritage'? Because, from where I sit, 'living in a cave, eating only what you can kill with a pointy stick' is also our 'natural heritage'. The rest is technology at work, for better or worse.
It just strikes me as weird, and I'd love to hear voices from the other side of it.
I live in the city and don't drive. It's been forever since I've seen the Milky Way and I'm rather sad about that. :-( I don't really know how it can be solved, and I really do believe that this fact has a strongly negative effect on people's interest in space.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The photons that ARE visible are from street lights and security lamps.
Nobody walks in mid-air any more.
This makes each photon going up there a waste. And each one coming back unwanted and ususable.
And if that's not a good definition of pollution, I don't know what is.
The UNESCO http://www.unesco.org/ has had for some time initiatives like http://www.astronomicalheritage.org/ to promote and/or protect dark night skies.
I hate signatures
is a misnomer.
Just turn off some damn lights and it'll come back! More towns and cities need to adopt regulations about this. Perhaps petition drives are in order...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I saw it while in Australia, I am living in Europe.
It indeed is not good, not at all to see over here...
Which is a pity and perhaps worse.
This is horrible news! People can't see the stars at night! We need to demand that government stop these evil power companies from providing electricity after the sun goes down. And we need to arrest anyone driving around at night with headlights on or anyone using flashlights or candles. And all these tall buildings that block our view of the night sky need to be torn down immediately! It is our constitutional right to be able to see the stars at night. When I sit outside of my cave in the freezing cold I can barely see a single star at all. All these modern conveniences. Who needs 'em!?! It's time we gave up all these new fangled gadgets and went back to the old ways.
Imagine how much energy could be saved, and how much of this could be remediated with some simple changes. I generally like my government small and out of my business but in this case, it would be fairly easy.
- stores must turn off all lights, including parking lot lights within 30 minutes of the time the last employee leaves. (I can't count the number of times I've driven past a mall at midnight with every store light on, all the outside signage lit and every light on the parking lot on.
- no neon, internal or spotlights on outdoor signage, if you really want it to be seen at night, make it reflective.
- limit the lumens from all vehicle headlamps, limit lights only to headlight, foglight, brakelights and turn signals.
- no external floodlights on houses unless they are on a motion sensor that is set to go off with activity no further than 25 ft away and must go out with a delay of no more than 30 seconds after motion stops.
- occupants of office building must turn off all lights when the business closes for the day.
you could always go to North Korea.
Granted, there are a few other problems you'd have to deal with, just not light pollution.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Well I dont know about you, but just about every liquor store I know sells milky ways... I just dont see what everyone is complaining about.
I've loved the night sky since I was a kid and growing up in rural NC, I could, and still can, see the Milky Way, observe nebula, etc..
However, I spent a night in the Moroccan desert and was just slobberknockered at the sky. Likewise, I camped in the Peruvian Andes and the clarity and seeing the southern hemisphere stars for the first time was just mind warping.
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. - HST
at last! Britain is no longer in europe!
When did Britain get moved to a different continent? Or did we get upgraded?
no taxation without representation!
In our last vacation, my four-year old spent at least 30 minutes staring up to the night sky with his mouth open...
Did he see Uranus?
But that's because I live in Pittsburgh, where it's overcast with clouds constantly. We have weeks where we can't even see the Sun.
The glow of their web server melting down probably isn't helping...
That's one of the silliest terms I've ever heard. Comparing light at night to smog or dirty water is disingenuous. There are no health hazards to nighttime light. Its simply a marketing term for people that are angry that they have to travel a little bit to get a good view of the stars. Well, too bad. That's the price you pay for civilization. Cities and suburbs are lighted at night for good reasons. Properly used, night lighting deters crime, improves safety, and allows us to use more of the day for productive purposes. Lighting allowed us to do work at night that we formerly couldn't do.
I don't know about you, but I'll take all of those advantages over living in the dark just so I can get an unobstructed view of the stars. And I say that as someone that used to enjoy amateur astronomy quite a bit (getting a new telescope will have to wait until the toddler gets older).
When I was using a telescope, I simply accepted that I was going to have to drive 20 minutes if I wanted a fantastic view of the stars... I even had my favorite spots picked out. Now if you choose to live in a place like New York City, then use your head... you're going to have to accept that you are choosing to live in a heavily lighted environment. It's a tradeoff. Want beautiful, naked-eye views of the night sky? Move to Montana or some remote desert town. Want better economic opportunities and the benefits of a city? Plan your sky-viewing trips out of the city, then.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I'm 31. I grew up in the suburbs and moved to the city after college. I'm used to seeing a few random stars scattered in the empty sky and that's all I ever thought of the night sky as. I think I had only ever seen one or two shooting stars. Finally in 2003 I went on a vacation to Las Vegas and also spent two days at the Grand Canyon. WOW! There was almost no light around the hotel I stayed at near the Canyon and I could see the sky packed full of stars and quite a few shooting stars. It was really incredible. It's sad that so many of us have missed out on this for much of our lives. Most people have no idea what they're missing.
... that maybe if everyone could see how small we really are, more would have a sense of humility then do now.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
Even when this country didn't have light pollution, the milky way was a rare sight. Normally when you look up there's just clouds. On the few clear nights we do have the moon would blot out the MW, anyway. On occasion you get to see a few bright dots through the light pollution - but those are generally just an aircraft flying by.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I can barely seen the moon with my naked eyes much less the stars. Now if I put my glasses on...oh wait the article is about light pollution isn't it?
I'm selling my house in Spokane. You can generally see the milky way, and hang out with the deer and elk while you do it.
Nice spot, 10 acres of farmland within viewing distance of a lake (barely), miles of bike trails along the river, ... but I couldn't take the trade-off.
You see, to get all that you have to live in Spokane.
I have never seen the milky way, and until reading about dark skies didn't even realize it was possible to see the Milky Way from Earth. I always saw the pictures of a galaxy, with an arrow saying "Earth is here" as just an artists rendering of what we think it might look like.
The thing is, I don't live in a city. I just live in a suburb of a small city on the East coast of the United States where there is a ton of light pollution. I would think it safe to say there are many people like myself who have never seen it, and quite frankly don't know what they are missing. I am only interested because I am technically curious, unlike most people who probably don't care.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
I already saw it on the internet.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
People live in _cities_. Cities have lights.
The summary suggests that 2/3 of America is covered in "light pollution." No, 2/3 of the population is living concentrated in cities large enough to block out the stars, in a total area which is insignificant compared to the size of the nation. I used to live in a (Canadian) town of one million. When the Perseids came through my friends and I drove an hour out of town and watched them. I hate the term "light pollution" because it suggests that light is something like smog, which you can't, you know, _just turn off_. Granted, we don't, but ffs don't call it pollution, call it interference.
I grew up in the country. It always feels mildly offensive when people shriek about the global effects of humanity's efforts and pollution and whatnot. Sure, if you live in the middle of a major city and never leave, it must seem like the entire world is glass and steel, but cities and roads are specks and narrow lines spread across a vast territory that's otherwise taken up with Nature. And, might I add, Nature does a pretty good job of reclaiming anything we don't spend time and energy to keep tidy. I've seen big construction sites and the effort it takes to put something up, and I've seen the abandoned houses and schools and roads in areas not serviced by major highways.
Human effort to push back Nature only seems impressive if you stay in those areas where we won. If you step outside, you'll see entire buildings consumed incidentally in the process of Nature going about its business.
Coincidentally, only 1/5 of the world can purchase a Milkway candy bar. Haw haw haw!
I live in New Jersey (I know "boo!") and my Dobson is all but worthless. The Jersey night sky is like pink mud. I think I'll put my Dobson to better use and fill it with giant Pringles.
Until Google stops chopping the top off of mountains in Kentucky to get coal to fuel the interweb, the sky will continue to get more polluted. Seriously, WTF am I talking about.
I live in upstate New York so I can still see it.
Of course I can't get cable television where I live, and my closest neighbor is 1/4 of a mile away.
Seeing the stars and breathing fresh air is why I live where I do.
You know get back to the land and set my soul free, and all that.
Oh, and raising my own food and stock-piling weapons for the coming Zombie Apocalypse . . . but I digress.
"Oh drat, these computers, they're so naughty and so complex." Marvin the Martian
Pollution in general turns the atmosphere into a hazy soup that scatters, reflects, and blocks the light of the stars. The lights in our urban and suburban night-time environments only make that haze visible because of the light reflected from it, making it harder to see dim objects in the sky. There is a scale to measure the 'darkness' of a viewing location, called the 'Bortle Dark-Sky Scale', which allows you to evaluate the 'darkness' your viewing location. Using this scale, the night-time sky in Galileo's time would achieve a ranking of '1', the darkest sky possible. If that were the case, it would have been possible to read a book or a newspaper with ease by the light of the full Moon.
The 'World Atlas of the Artificial Night Sky Brightness' has some nice pix of worldwide light pollution.
An article in 'The New Yorker' magazine from August, 2007, discusses light pollution and John Bortle.
Sig this!
How much of the world's population have never shot a game animal, cleaned and cooked the meat, tanned the hide for their clothes, built their own house (or cabin or hut), ...
You give up many things for civilization, yet it seems worth the cost.
I did pretty much the same thing. I went camping and saw the milky way for the first time. In my 30's.
Honestly - my first words once I saw it were "What the hell is that?"
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
You know, that's interesting because I remember a Nissan Z commercial from the 90s that showed the car on the German Autobahn and then it drove out on a dock on the ocean and the narrator said "Too bad you can't go to Europe". So perhaps they thought Britain is Europe?
More importantly, when did the US and European Union population leave the world? I would have thought I'd have noticed. Maybe I'm just in a big European version of the Matrix though. That means my trip to Canada a few years back must have been a lie.
which is totally what she said
Picked up a hobby I quit about 25 years ago Yes, old. Gots me a sweet, sweet 8" Newton on an Ikea-like cheap Dobson mount. Optics are first class though, as is the small collection of eyepieces I've collected over the last year, including a wide FOV beauty: the William Optics 40 mm UWAN. Right outside my house, overlooking The Hague, Holland, it's absolutely terrible, light polution wise. Still: planets (Saturn, beautiful), the moon (always beautiful at less than full moon), sunspots (the handful we get treated to at the moment, with the sun activity at a record low). Checked out comet Lulin a couple months back, and even though the light polution limited that to the main coma, it was breathtaking. Orion Nebula: dramaticaly better than I expected. Some other nebulas, while just 'browsing' with the UWAN, a bottle of Havana Club and that curious green tobacco the man sold me instead of the advertised "coffee". My point? It's terrible having to deal with the light polution, but even under the baddest of circumstances, it's possible to have breathtaking view on the universe outside Earth. If you have the least interest in that, get yourself a nice 'scope and show your kids and neighbours that there's actually stars out there.
...is what this astronomer is *really* saying. More lights means less crime and better living conditions, people! The US Congress needs to use some of the stimulus money on a new "White Skies" program to rid the world of darkness and terror.
I live in Los Angeles. One day I went up to Yosemite to hike Half-Dome. It's a long hike, so we started at 3 in the morning. When we broke out of the trees, I looked up and shit my pants.
Sorry, but me missing you shitting your pants is absolutely fine with me. Thanks for the concern though.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I've always wondered if there's some correlation between the increase in light pollution* and a decrease in the nation's interest in space exploration. Has a less visible and interesting night sky resulted in people no longer considering space an interesting frontier? For millenia men have looked up at the heavens and wondered what was out there and whether it was possible to visit those strange realms. Now that we have the technology, it seems as if a significant percentage of the population no longer cares. Is it because a smog- and light-filled nightsky no longer impells us to wonder?
Obviously, its not the only reason; space exploration is costly, dangerous and without immediate profit. But would there be a greater demand for space-travel if more people could see the stars?
* and yes, light pollution is pollution. It disrupts the life-cycle of many species, and is not entirely without effect on Man either (we are diurnal after all). It harms certain industries (albeit only a few small ones, like astronomy) and -in general- is not beautiful to look at. It may not be the most pressing form of pollution, but it is pollution nonetheless.
1/5 of the World's Population also has adequate/safe food, transportation, and clean/abundant water.
Not a coincidence in this case, although the cities could try to switch to alternative fuels if they wanted to. But that pollution is ultimately the price we have paid for the way we live.
Sure, when you compare light pollution to 'real' pollution, it seems like a trivial issue. Who cares that you can't see the stars? It's not like someone's going to get cancer or have mutant children because the sky is orange at night.
But there is a meaningful environmental side to it - all of that light that's directed into the atmosphere is completely wasted energy. Even the dark-sky crazies agree that night-time illumination is important, and that we can't have a world without streetlights and security lights. But the point is that those lights should be designed to focus their lumens at their intended targets, not up into the air. Think of billboards that have lights at the bottom pointing up to illuminate the sign. Total waste of energy. Lights directed properly will still light up that McDonalds billboard just as effectively, but use less power to do it and not spill so much light into the surrounding skies. A win/win.
I live in the rural midwest, so I guess I'm just a dumb redneck. But honestly, I feel quite sorry for those that live in places where they can't see the stars. I'm sure that to those that don't know what the Milky Way looks like, they just don't understand why those of us that *do* know what it looks like speak so highly of being able to see the stars. Cities are great. Full of options, people, and civilization. But I wouldn't trade it for the ability to sneak out to the countryside on a cool, clear summer night with a blanket, a bottle of wine, and my significant other, to just lie back and just watch the universe march by. If you've never experienced that, you have my sympathy.
I tried that, but they arrested my two girlfriends.
I blame Edison that darkness fighting bastard!
While not a large number, WHO estimates that 314 million people are blind or visually impaired. So add that number to those who wouldn't be able to see the Milky Way.
Despite the fact that he couldn't begin to suggest what else it might be.
Poor kids didn't grow up seeing it every night--don't even knwo what it is.
No, the trip was true. We just moved you temporarily to the Canadian server for the duration of your vacation.
The Milky-what-now?
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
The cycle path behind my house is illuminated with low-hanging LED lights. Sensors at every crossing switch off the lights on those parts of the path which is not in use. There are tests and ratings available to judge how much light specific models of lamp posts send upwards. Write to your city official!!!
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
99.999% can't see the Grand Canyon.
100% of us can't *smell* the *pretty* *colors*
Yes, pretty==good, and the Milky Way is pretty, but mankind has been fighting darkness at night for millennia. We finally beat it. Unless you're going to say that seeing the stars regularly is good for our mental health because it's part of our original environment or lack of stars-sight makes us vulnerable to cancer, I'll take my well-lit night any day. err, night. You know what I mean.
In a world of violence, famine, plagues, tryanny, bigotry, hate... I really wish "scientist" could find practical things to bitch about like millions starving, etc. Seriously of all the things to whine about... light pollution.
Oh crap Johnny can't see the milky way, we need to do something about that! Of course Johnny can't go outside at night because of gangs and his dad can't afford to buy him shoes but those problems are small in comparison to ... light pollution?
Listen, there are always trade offs in life. I for one have no issue with the view because I am too busy working to walk around with my eyes staring at the sky. Some of us have jobs. When we get home we do dishes, laundry, clean, and ... if we are lucky get an hour to catch the news and a TV show. That's the trade off living near cities.
Yeah light pollution is a problem like Brittney Spears getting a Grammy. How about feeding people, reducing traffic etc... There are plenty of real issues to worry about...
Better yet "scientist" when you are done bitching about light pollution why don't you do something about that 'other' kind of pollution that acutally harms people.
Jesus Christ People Get Your Priorities Straight!? Has the Ivory Tower crowd finally jumped the shark these days? LIGHT POLLUTION?! Damn must be a slow news day...
If you want to go see the Milk Way, DRIVE AWAY FROM THE CITIES!? I know those urbanites think there is no universe outside of the shadow of a sky scraper but you can get in this thing called a vechicle (if your aching green earth worrshipping moral code allows you to sit in one) and drive yourself about 40 minutes outside your crime infested rotting from the inside steel wasteland and look up and see it. They also have these HUGE collections of trees called FORESTS you might get to see... /RANT
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
I will never forget the first time I saw the Milky Way, on a cloudless, moonless night from the Sargasso Sea. The view was indescribable. Try to imagine a band of clouds illuminated by a electroluminescent light source, but not where the clouds are in our atmosphere, but as a back drop to the stars above. Its humbling.
There was a big meteor shower in August in 1993 that was busier than normal. Everyone and their dog headed for the observatory in the east. My roommates and I found a nice hill side about 20 miles south to lay back and watch the shower. The band of light from the Milky Way was hanging over head as we discussed life and philosophy. Only when we were leaving did we discover that the hill side was the backside of the county dump.
They can. On youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKSejOwwB7I
Plenty of other videos too :).
Yah I know it's not the same thing... But I live in a tropical country, even if I could see the milky way there are currently too many mosquitoes to make it a pleasant experience...
Most amazing use of a phone yet
well, maybe...
While it is a sad fact that you can't watch the night sky a lot of places (and it is - I remember taking a road trip from Chicago up to Wisconsin one night to watch a meteor shower), it seems to be an unfortunate necessity. Here's an analogy for those who don't get the point. If you've ever been camping, you know that if you want to stargaze, you have to wander away from the campfire. If its a group of 5 or so people camping, its a small fire, and it doesn't take you long to meander away, look up in awe, and wander back. Now increase your camp size. Now its fifty people. You have bigger fires, and probably more than one. You have enough people that at least one fire is burning all night. Increase size by another factor of ten and you find more fires. Now you probably qualify as a community. You probably have specialized fires for a blacksmith or other craftsman. You likely have dozens of fires, a good many of which will burn throughout the night. The distance you must walk increases proportionately. Now we're going to make the jump. With 10,000 times the residents of our hypothetical community, a large city would have 1000s of fires (now electric lights) to provide security. At this point - one has to travel a significant distance to really get a good look at the sky (from downtown Chicago, the distance is approximately 80 miles if you're traveling north). Yes it's sad - but in order to maintain dense civilizations that give us all the things that better the human condition, we must sacrifice some of those things. And as others have pointed out, it's not as if those things are completely gone. Take a bus or a train ride. Drive out to the middle of nowhere.
Four fifths of the world's population can't see across the street.
This is silly. Yes it's magestic, yes it's pretty. If you want to see the stars, leave your metropolis and drive for 45 minutes.
The concept of city lights is a very good one -- seeing, safety, convenience, fun, commerce, night-life, and more.
If you're asking me to choose between star-gazing and night-life, I'm choosing night-life, along with almost everyone else. When I want to see the stars, I'll drive 30 minutes north. it's not complicated.
... four fifths of the worlds population could honestly give a rat's ass that the other fifth can't see the Milky Way at night. And this just in: one fifth of the world's population now considering living on the moon to avoid real estate taxes and to get a better view of whatever is causing all the fuss in the night sky.
'The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage,' said Connie Walker, and astronomer from the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.
Hello! I am astronomer. I really did say that with Connie Walker, the night clean up girl.
One thing that hasn't been emphasized so far as I've read, is not so much even the loss of dark sky (which is a shame for people who would have their eyes opened), but rather the waste of energy and light going up into the sky.
As in, if lights were properly aimed/covered/baffled, you could probably spend 10-20% less energy on lighting. Is that not a waste to be doing the old way then?
As they have done in some municipalities, have legislation that only well-baffled outdoor lamps be sold or used. Who would this hurt, lamp manufacturers? Even? Would it be such an encroachment on the right to choose a wasteful lamp housing?
You know the lamp posts with bulbs+lenses that shine light everywhere -- the kind with 360deg housings. Why? The birds don't care about the light -- it's people underneath. Unless you run an airport, guiding planes into land, cover that shit up!
As in many things today, we don't have to be virtuous or self-righteous about lofty issues before it's ripe to do so -- just ask people to begin by stopping the waste of precious resources. I think everyone (aside from asshole investment bankers) can understand that.
actually 50% can't see the milky way... because they are on the wrong side of the earth every night.
Hm.
In the first picture there seems to be at least one bright North Korean city, and in the second there is not.
Also in the second parts of China look pretty dark, and in the first those same parts have bright spots.
Can anyone explain this?
GPS 48-57
Echostar 23-32
DirectTV 14-23
I have in-laws in suburban Phoenix, and there is an "anti-light pollution" ordinance in effect there. NO STREETLIGHTS. It is very eerie and strange, driving around dense suburbs, in near total darkness. You see the headlights of the other traffic, the endless banality of the lighted signs at strip-malls, but aside from the safety lights in the parking lots, no lights on the street.
In contrast, I (very fortunately) live in a fairly rural area in California; though we DO have streetlights. And the view of the stars at night is better in Phoenix. I have to drive about a half hour away from home to get a decent view of the night sky.
Now: compared to where I grew up - Chicago. . . I remember being disappointed when Haley's Comet came around. I couldn't even see the damn thing on a clear night. And that was after an hour's drive out into the "country".
Light pollution ordinances seem to be a very fascistic way to address this; public-safety is really more important than everyone being able to see stars from their backyard. It's an old notion that is apparently dying for us. It's sad. But as we (humanity) breed faster than cockroaches, I don't really see much alternative.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Stupid industrial civilization. Time to destroy it. Obama, are you reading this?
For me the best thing about being able to see the Milky Way is the sense of perspective you get from the realisation of what it is you're looking it in relation to where you are. Next time you get to see the Milky Way, think about how the galaxy is in a flat-ish plane, and how you and the band you are seeing are both in the same plane. Once you think about it, you mentally orientate yourself in this plane and it starts to mess with your perception of what's "up" and what's "down". The discrepancy between the local "up and down" that you experience on Earth and the bigger "up and down" you see from the Milky Way puts things into perspective in quite a powerful way, in that you stop seeing the sky as a big mass of stars and start to see how you + the Earth fits in to the bigger picture. Of course this may all be obvious to a lot of people here on /. but it isn't to most non-nerds, so if you're on a camping trip and want to impress your mates (or a girl..), try this, it works great ;)
If you don't know what the big deal is then you've probably never seen it. I still remember, thirty years later, seeing the night sky from a campground near Gettysburg, PA. Haven't seen it since, and I doubt if you can still see it from Gettysburg.
I think I'd have to travel an hour and a half to see it now. Maybe I should do that while those places still exist east of the Mississippi.
I grew up in the inne city where in some places it was just as bright as daytime at night. (Those of you from phila know what I'm talking about) In my neighborhood I could see some stars if I was lucky I could see orion or the big dipper. I wasn't until I joined the navy and I was in the middle of the ocean with no land in either direction for hundreds of miles that I was able to see the full splender of the heavens. At 21yrs old I had my first look at the milky way. I had no idea what I was looking at. I wish my son could see these types of things. I have never seen that many stars. Crystal clear cold night in the north atlantic with a new moon. So dark you can barely see your own hand infront of your face but when you look up all you can say is WOW
I brought my American fiancee to Cape Tribulation on a vacation to remote Tropical North Queensland in Australia and the night sky blew us both away - we got away from the bungalows (no street or outdoor lights, under the rain forest and mangroves) and viewed the sky from the beach. We've been to Mauna Kea on Hawaii and while that was great, but we've not seen anything that rivaled the southern hemisphere so far... I think about it often and realize why so much folklore existed about the night sky when you could actually see the damn thing.
Was the most absolutely beautiful night in my life, until the moon came up anyway. I can't number how many friends looked up at the sky for the first time and realized the beauty that was always hidden away.
Really rather wish they didn't fix it so damn fast. Should make these blackouts a yearly thing, Earth hour is nothing in comparison.
It's just subsets of the superset. You're not supposed to add all three together.
20% of 100% can't see the Milky Way.
66% of a select 4% can't see the Milky Way.
50% of another select percent (dunno what EU/World is offhand) can't see the Milky Way.
The problem is that some people just don't get it. They don't take the time to look at this universe in awe and wonder and simply don't care about being able to see the Milky Way at night. They're not bad people. They're just ignorant.
If you live in a smaller town and even suggest the concept of "light pollution", people look at you and assume you are some sort of left-leaning-environmental-wacko. It doesn't matter how conservative your politics are--some people hear you discuss "light pollution" and they lump you into the same camp as all of the "tree huggers", "greens", "liberals", "communists", or whatever other groups they hold as "the enemy". I've even advocated just going a few nights a year without lights, coinciding with various meteor showers. Again, I must be a "nut job". After all, there's "no such thing as light pollution".
Of course, it doesn't help if you live in a town that is home to a major manufacturer of lighting components for public spaces and industry, either. Then such "light pollution" comments are viewed as attacks on the town's economy, too.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
The Big Island of Hawaii has a great anti-light pollution rules. A) Only 100K people live there anyway B) Strict street light rules. The night sky from Mauna Kea will make you cry: http://www.anadventurer.com/2008/06/mauna-kea-sunset-and-moon-rise.html
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
We are paying *lots* of money for oil to light up the sky at night (which helps no one). In the USA, this is mostly imported oil. So, in the current economy there will be a lot of pressure to stop wasting money and oil, and stop producing greenhouse gasses, etc.
Computers obey me.
The statistic should be that 1/5th of the world's population lives in population dense cities that produce too much light pollution to observe the milky way at night.
MOST places in the US and Europe offer spectacular views of the night sky, including the Milky Way. Fortunately the population is not very dense except in the big cities.
When 1/5 of the world has too much light pollution to observe the Milky Way, then I will worry. 1/5 of the worlds population, no big deal. Hell, I'd guess that most of the other 4/5's of the population wish they had that problem, cause then it might mean that they have the power to run their wells, clean their water, refrigerate their food, compete for the next big call center, and maybe stop burying 1/4, or 1/3, or even 1/2 of their children before they see 18.
While I agree that it would be nice if we industrialized nations could dim it a little in our big cities so our spoiled kids can see a few stars, I don't consider it a cause for concern.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
I live in LA and I can't even see the stars.
Starlight, star bright,
first and only star I'll see tonight
Wish I may, wish I might . . .
Yeah in LA we see STAR.. the north star. That's it.
Seriously, to me this is sort of old news. Let me tell you a story;
When I was young, I grew up in a small town about 50 miles from London in the UK. We rarely left the area because we really couldn't travel much. When I was in a little older, we lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland... and finally when I was 18 I lived in London for a few years. This is significant because the first time I truly traveled outside of major metropolitan areas in my life, I was 21 and I went to Oklahoma. I was staying with friends in Chickasha, OK... and one night, I think it was my fourth night in the area we drove out to Lake Louis Burtschi, as poor college students do when they can't afford to go out and do stuff. Anyway, I recall distinctly stepping out of the car and literally had my breath taken away. My friends said I stood dead still for almost a minute, and I remember the feeling of vertigo, the feeling of depth as I stared into that starry night sky, the Milky Way clear above my head as I had seen it in books.
All my life, I had grown up seeing these pictures in books of mountains with the Milky Way shown clearly there... and all my life I had believed truly that those pictures were in some way faked to make a dramatic point. Sure, I had vaguely seen the "fuzz" of the glow of the galaxy across the sky on the clearest nights I can remember in Belfast, but never in my life before had I seen anything like it. I had never even suspected that I was able to see the sky that clearly from any vantage point on Earth except perhaps the tops of the tallest mountains... even then I doubted it looked like that. I just had no idea until I saw it first hand.
That night I stood there for the better part of 5 or 6 hours, taking in the majesty of a night sky I had never suspected I would ever see in my life, thinking that the only place I could see that would be out the window of a space shuttle (something I knew I would never do).
I'm 36 now, but that night is still vivid in my memory. It's still incredible, and still so unbelievable to me that I had the chance to see that. I have been back there since, and though it's not as clear now as it was 15 years ago, it's still an awe-inspiring sight for someone like me who has lived most of my life in suburbs. Today I live in St. Louis... we're lucky to see Betelgeuse most nights because of the light pollution of our metropolis. I know I can drive a few hours out of town and get a better view, but Missouri is too humid for a view like I got in Oklahoma.
I know how the younger people feel today... and they really don't know what they're missing. It's a sad state of affairs, and yes... one that can be rectified by getting away from the large cities if possible. But remember my example; I didn't even consider that getting away from the cities would afford me that much better a view... because I had never seen it and never encountered it. Cities are so densely packed in Britain that you'd be really hard-pressed to find a single location where you're far enough from light pollution to see that clearly. Sure, maybe the highlands of Scotland... but having been up in the highlands a few times I can say that you'd be damned lucky to get a night that wasn't overcast in most of those mountains.
I'm somewhat reminded of the people of Krikkit in Life, The Universe and Everything: They lived their entire lives surrounded by a dust cloud that obscured the night sky to the extent that it never even occurred to them that there was anything beyond that dust cloud... or even that there was a sky, as such. I think in some ways I felt when I saw the Milky Way clearly for the first time that I had spent my entire life obscured from the real night sky and as such had never even considered it's existence in the way I have since.
(note to astronomy impaired, you generally don't get to see stars more than 90 degrees from your lattitude (yer local zenith, eh?), polaris is about 90 deg N (hence "north star"), so no one below the equator will ever see it (more or less). And no, I don't know what that is in the metric system)
Now I'm confused. Are those 90 degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit?
Properly designed outdoors lighting is widely available. It directs light downwards, towards the places where the people are - not upwards, to waste energy by illuminating the sky.
So far as being only a 30 minute drive to a good sky - ha! you don't really live in a metropolis if you're that close to a dark sky. Where I live there's no possibility of seeing the milky way properly with less than a 300 mile drive in any direction (although 2 directions are bound by the sea). Now that's light pollution.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Now that they built a giant Lexus dealer with stadium lighting I can't even see the moon anymore.
I've never seen the arc of the Milky Way. Not even way out in the boonies of central Ontario. Saw /lots/ of stars, and used to spend pleasant summer evenings even in suburbia watching satellites pass through the stars, but never seen the arc. I've only seen the arc represented in pictures and illustrations.
Apparently I don't have "night vision". This is very slight; I tend to turn on house lights a little before other people do. I can drive at night, point out all the regular constellations etc, but I've never seen the 'arc'. There's going to be a fairly hefty chunk of the population who are not considered vision impaired in any other way, who also cannot see the arc.
And yes, I'm envious. Must be fantastic.
I can't find the link now, but 2-3 years ago, I referred to a nice google-ized dark sky map that seemed to indicate the darkest area near LA (that isn't too insane of a drive) is kind of around a campsite/parking lot near Mt. Pinos (up the 5, off the Frazier Mt exit).
A few friends and I drove there after work, to get a good view of the Perseids. That was amazing. The milky way, the shower, everything was cool. In California, I only recall seeing darkness like that going up the 395 to Mammoth and in a secluded camp near Big Sur. Otherwise, there is no good dark near LA. Even once I was in the Mojave Nat'l preserve and there was light pollution (some from San Bernadino, but there was still that damn glow from LA)
But as good as it was, I really wouldn't want to drive ~2 hours on a regular basis to see the milky way. It's not that I'm immobile. I would go nuts driving that much everyday.
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
When we moved into our current house, the kids were amazed at how many stars they could see. Then the new school that was built a couple of blocks away decided that lights were needed to ensure that the school and the surrounding parking areas would be illuminated twenty-four hours a day, every single day. When I brought up the subject and suggested putting in motion-controlled sensors on the lights so they wouldn't need to be all all night long you'd have thought I suggested roasting the students on a spit. And this is a school district that is laying off a number of staff and faculty and shutting down programs because their budget is being hit. Morons.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, they do nothing to reduce light pollution, they just use less energy. :-/
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The real sad part is that the article doesn't mention that 100% of the world's population can't see the Milky Way during the day. And they wonder why man has always had the desire to destroy the sun.
You can see the Milky Way no problem here. Maybe everybody should move here.
It's a damn shame more people can't see the milky way, it's really an awesome sight. I went most of my life without seeing it in anything but photos. Took an excursion to the McDonald observatory and my first view of it really took my breath away. You KNOW there are a lot of stars, you KNOW space is big, really big, but it was almost overwhelming to lay back in the grass and see so much of the universe above me. If you've never seen it, you owe it to yourself to get a peek before you die.
I read a great article from National Geographic that helps illustrate some of the effects of light pollution. I'm an amateur astronomer because I find it more stimulating than television, and I feel that attempting to understand the universe we live in is something we ought to do as human beings. But I still have to drive 2 hours to find an astronomically dark sky. Light pollution is fixable and would be a trivial decision when lighting a building if folks think about it. I just simply don't turn on my house lights at night. "Earth Hour" is 24/7 for me.
I think this one fifth is a gross under-estimate. Don't forget that almost half the earth is bathed in sunlight most of the time. I'd reckon that at any one time, no more than a third of the population can see the stars at all!
return 0; }
I can see the Milkyway just fine here in the Chicago area, day or night. The trick is, instead of looking up, look down and, unless the fog is really heavy, you'll be looking at part of the Milkyway (though, technically, I guess the fog would be part of the Milkyway too).
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
You can move somewhere were you can have an incredible, soul shaking view of the night sky. Or you can have the convenience of popping down to the convenience store at 3am for snacks. It's unlikely you'll ever get both. Places that have the best night views are trying to kill you with malaria and dangerous animals. Places without the night view have supermarkets, nightclubs, schools for your kids, and (damn) pollution.
So what is important to you?
-- Will program for bandwidth
Just ask to get your own preserve...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sky_preserve#cite_note-0
Then they will pass a bill to force people and company to use receded bulb Flat lens 100% downward...!
I grew up outside of Orlando, now it's encompassed by the city limits but not city itself, and I used to be able to lay down in the yard for a terrific view of the starts. It was rural then but it's urban now.
Of course, Alligator Alley has it's name for a reason. I grew up in rural Florida, and I knew the sound of alligators.
One thing I miss since moving is going to a BBQ and having gator tail, frog legs, and wild boar.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
That aside, I don't see how any government can possibly take light pollution seriously. Too much investment to satisfy too small a group - who cares if it's world heritage.
Except it's not just astronomers that suffers from light pollution. Animals suffer as well. For instance sea turtles. Turtle hatchlings mistake beach front lights as light being reflected from water. Some in the US are concerned about the effects of net fishing wherein trawlers drag large nets which ensnares dolphins, ie the "Dolphin Safe" labels on some tuna cans, and turtles. But light pollution can have as much a negative impact on for instance leatherback turtles as nets do. There are many other species that are impacted by light pollution.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Light pollution has caused one-fifth of the world's population â" mostly in Europe, Britain and the US
A majority of Slashdot story posters apparently don't realize that Britain is part of Europe. Saying "in Europe and Britain" makes as much sense as saying "in the US and California".
From your "deters crime" link:
So, put the money you'd put into lighting into sprucing up the place in some other way, and you can reasonably hope for the same effect. Maybe a better effect, if you find something more obviously related to making things look cared for.
Your other link ("improves safety") is just an advocacy group (for "Safe Routes to Schools", which, for me, at least, rings all kinds of "think of the children" alarm bells). Lighting isn't even a core issue for them. They claim they get their information from unnamed "experts", and their safety claims for lighting amount to a simple mention once in a whole Web site. Their own references are unavailable for review, as well as being old and, from their titles, multi-subject documents that aren't primary research and probably don't even spend most of their attention on lighting. If you can't find a better citation than that anywhere on the whole Web, I tend to suspect that the whole claim isn't very well supported.
And anything that gets released into the environment and causes any negative effect can reasonably be called "pollution", thanks.
Not a high mountain, by world-standards - only 2,000 metres - but it's an isolated mountain, well away from any sources of light pollution. Yes, the nearest real medical facility is more than three hours away by road, and the nearest university is almost four hours away, but my telescopes and I have one of the darkest skies on the planet, and there are helicopters based nearby should any emergency arise which justifies a mercy dash anywhere.
If pubbing and clubbing means a lot to you, and being able to go out to restaurants and the movies whenever you feel like it is a priority, then yeah, this is not the ideal place to be for you, no doubt about it. But my family and I wouldn't live anywhere else, so I guess we all have to accept that different people value different things, and make different lifestyle choices.
Oh, and don't forget that just because you lived in a city to attend university it doesn't mean you have to stay in a city once you you graduate...
But why do they have to shine them up into the sky? Didn't they used to have hoods on them a long time ago?
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
Do you know why Japanese fishermen light up the sea at night?
So they can SEE!
People born in cities these days don't realize that the Milky Way is something real that they can see with their own eyes. The words "Milky Way" themselves are losing their meaning. For a lot of people, the words "Milky Way" just mean something vaguely spacey.
When faced with the Milky Way for the first time from a dark location, they'll easily think "oh there's a line of clouds moving in." In the city, the clouds glow. From a truly dark location, the only way you can tell there are clouds is by the big patch of dark where there should be stars.
And likewise, many people will never have the experience of having their vision fully dark adapted. It's amazing how milky gray the sky looks when you actually are dark adapted.
If you can see the Milky Way then it's worth pondering how other cultures interpreted the sky: The Emu in the Sky http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/AboriginalAstronomy/Examples/emu.htm
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
Amazing that there are places you could just look up and see that. I've never seen the night sky as anything but pitch black with a few dull white dots, and maybe the moon.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I know what they meant, but they have a stupid way of saying it.. would have been much better with a semi-colon or some other way of separating the generic from the specific:
"more than one fifth of the world population; two thirds of the US population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way."
which is totally what she said
In Japan, they've become so rare in most areas that they're practically mythical. Growing up 30 years ago in suburban northern Virginia, they were so numerous it was no big deal to fill a jar with them. I haven't been back during the summer since, maybe, 1997... I have no idea if they're still so numerous, but Japan's history makes me think they probably aren't. :-(
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
There was a practical study conducted by the town government of the German municipality of Rheine. The article here in Der Spiegel mentions this. Despite turning off much of the town's night lighting, night crime incidence rates remained low.
It seems that the modern streetlight is little more than the grown-up's version of the night light. I say it's high time we all grow up and learn to live with the dark. It's really not that frightening.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I couldn't see it anyway. I respectfully request to be removed from the statistics of this study.
"You can't really dust for vomit" --Nigel Tufnel
On a clear night I can see a fabulous array of stars at Waikerie in South Aust. Only 2 hours from the nearest city!
I moved to Lincoln in November last year, and have been hating the weather, the drivers, the politics and the general happiness with being ignorant.
I'll have to head out of town a bit to see what I can see. Thanks for the tip.
This is typical environmental Dogma. Lets break it down...
1) "Light pollution" -- So you've already been conditioned that pollution is bad, therefore, what you are about to read is bad.
2) "has caused one-fifth of the world's population" -- OMG! 1/5... Yes, that means that four-fifths has NO problem seeing the milky way. That is in POPULATION numbers. Lets do math :) 6,706,993,152 (July 2008 est.) and 4/5 = 5,365,594,521.6 (That .6 must be me.) Ok, that works out to 80% of the worlds population CAN see the milkyway. So, Whats the problem again?
3)"mostly in Europe, Britain and the US" -- Oh... I see, boo-hoo.. I don't know about who "US" are because I can see it just fine from my house, so it must really be You. THEN MOVE.
4)"'The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage,' said Connie Walker" REALLY? I thought our planet's natural heritage was to vilently erupt spewing lava over insignificant surface dwellers. Maybe to freeze and build up encroaching ice over the surface? I think that if you look at the geological timeline, we have admired the milkyway for but a briefest of moments to the planet. So, where is the heritage? Oh yes, in our feeble minds.
5) The rest just reitterates the negative because "a lie told enough times will become the truth."
I'm sick of this cult. When will they go away?
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
I would urge all readers to petition their Councils and Power authorities to set codes of conduct to limit light pollution. It only requires a few words in their maintenance contracts stipulating all replacement streetlight fittings reflect 99% of their light downward, Manufactures would then produce deeper reflectors in order to sell products that reach the code and eventually things would improve.
Growing up and going to school in Queens ny in the 50s, my teachers told us about the great MW. All I could do was scratch my head. It wasn't until 10 years later (I was 16), smoking a joint on a clear winters night in VT--visiting a friend--that EUREKA. I finally knew the beauty they had spoken of. Of course none of my teachers bothered to explain that one can't see the MW from Queens ny. How ignorant could they be? colonel spalding
When I was at University I enrolled in an Astronomy course. One weekend I arranged with one of the professors to borrow one of the departments telescopes and took a few friends from the class to the area my family lived in (about 100km outside of the city).
It turned out to be not very pleasant weather, but we waited a couple of hours and by about 1am the weather started to clear: I pointed out the Milky Way to the others who were with me and it then took me a further 1/2 hour to convince them that the stuff I was pointing to was indeed stars and not just a bunch of cloud: none of my class mates had really spent much time outside of the city.
I found this both amusing and disturbing at the same time.
Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
I've never seen the Milky way with my own eyes ( only pictures ) , so i must be part of that 1/5
Slipping shoelaces ?
I live right on the 45th parallel, between Canada on the USA. (the "official" border is a few hundred feet south of here).
Yes, it is dark at night. Nearest "big" lights are in Valleyfield, Quebec (north) and Malone, NY (south).
I'd love to go out more at night and observe, but the damn mosquitoes (in summer) and cold (in winter) make it rather uncomfortable.
But I do easily recognize Polaris (45 deg North), the Pleaides. and others, and of course, the dark band of the milky way.
Sadly, my kids were not impressed and have moved to the big city.
Ah well.. they'll be back someday.
I shall keep the telescope ready.
.
- aqk
F U
I have seen it but I think it was dim and barely visible. And I thought that was the best that can be seen. Now I searched for real pictures on the internet and I discovered that I am probably missing something :(
Last month, I spent a coupla weeks helping sail a small sloop from the Caribbean to Bermuda and thence to NYC and upriver, etc.
In the Sargasso Sea, the night sky was never more brilliant and beautiful, even with a half moon.
A common rule is that only THREE astronomical objects are simultaneously visible in daylight: The Sun, The Moon, and the planet Venus.
I had the night shift piloting the yacht, and a coupla nights (at dawn) I could easily see all three simultaneously, and was ALMOST able to see a fourth- either the planet Saturn or Jupiter which had risen earlier.
But as the Sun rose, and the stars gradually disappeared in the blue sky, I had more and more difficulty keeping track of this fourth faint object.
Finally I had to admit I could see only the 3 aforementioned objects.
Well, I hope to try again someday...
.
- aqk
F U
I can't see the Milky Way even at DAY!
...murmurs something about insensitive clods...
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Light pollution? We LIKE light, we CHOOSE to light up things around us. Looking once at the sky and noticing the milky way may seem amazing first few times, but seeing it every day will not improve your life in any way at all - unless this is your profession(astronomy). It just gets boring. Light around you HELPS.
Do you realize how much natural "light pollution" happens by just moving to a location 5 degrees latitude higher?
There is a very significant percent of human population living on locations over 50 degrees latitude, where the night sky during the summer is close to non existent - and no, they don't get cancer or sick because of it, you just get used to it.
Sorry guys, but this ton of BS just got me angry.
Light pollution has caused one-fifth of the world's population - mostly in Europe, Britain and the US - to lose their ability to see the Milky Way in the night sky. (from main article)
Britain, whether they like it or not, is considered part of Europe.
The British (and also the rest of Europe) wish it were different, but these are the facts. :D
There's one road where it's 20 feet between each light. You can have four shadows visible from the number of streetlights.
But you don't even need them closer than 40 yards (as long as the light isn't shining horizontally, reducing your eyesight from the glare). They will still illuminate the ground well enough.
Heck, there's no direct light into my back garden. Yet if the clouds are Alto Stratus ~8000 ft or lower, a few short seconds after walking out the back, I can see my garden clearly.
JUST FROM THE LIGHT POLLUTION!
The lower the cloud, the brighter.
If there was ever such a thing as a Dyson Sphere, we would never see the stars again. Or if we enclosed the planet like Asimovs Trantor. Only the wealthy and privileged would get to see the sky let alone the stars. I can imagine that in the interests of gathering solar energy and increased efficiency, we can look forward to a time when the whole earth is exposed to sunlight constantly instead of 12 hours a day. Large mirrors constructed in space that orbit the earth once per year keeping the "night" side lit. Once again, we would not see the stars.
I stopped seeing the Milky Way at night after we stopped living in a ditch and moved into a house.
In Shanghai you cannot even see the sun (every non-cloudy day) because of the smog! Or moon at night.
These are science geeks, not English majors. We know what we mean; who cares if no one else can understand us?
Street light glare, blat blat. No problemo.
Neighbor's porch light keeping you up? Blat blat blat - done.
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I could easily be considered a "science geek" too (one of the programming projects I am working on at the moment are for modelling performance of hydraulic systems, and another is for turbine simulation when drilling down an oil-well) - I just always happen to be good at spelling (perhaps because I read a lot as a kid, I don't know), and basically everything else too as far as schooling or learning things is concerned really. I know not everyone finds things as easy as I do, I'm quite lucky in some ways, though as seems common with most people of high-ish IQ, I am not without mental problems :p
Anyway, you'd think people who have exposure to scientific methods, programming, and so on would understand the benefits of expressing yourself clearly and accurately. You can't just write poor documentation and assume that someone will "know what you mean". It's especially important to get rid of ambiguous data in scientific matters. People need to be able to verify your calculations and/or repeat experiments precisely for your work to have any value.
I get that some people simply have problems with language - dyslexia and so on - but I think most of what I see online is simply laziness or ignorance. In the case of the quote in the summary, it is likely just a case of lax reporting; the journalist has written down spoken English and not gone back to punctuate it correctly before including it in their article.
I'd be able to see the stars if it wasn't raining you insensitive clod!
Not my website, so I apologize in advance to the host for the slashdotting but:
http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/
A nice Google map interface that shows you levels of light pollution for the USA. It goes from 0 (Like my hometown, Boston, MA) to 7 (Like the middle-of-nowhere, Maine).
Apparently the awe inspiring view I experienced in Vermont is only a level 4, I'm definitely going to have to make the road trip up to Maine and have my mind blown by perfectly dark sky.
Not true! The light is highly directional. A typical streetlight casts quite a bit of light in directions unneeded. LEDs aren't much more efficient than a sodium lamp, but you don't make as much light because it goes exactly where you need it... that's where the energy savings comes from.
They also promise to last longer than a sodium lamp, reducing maintenance - that's the real selling point for cities, but isn't interesting for the purposes of our discussion.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Oh, interesting. Thanks for the information. I generally believe you, but if you have any references you'd be willing to point me at, I'd really appreciate it.
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I've read it in a couple of places... usually listed as a "disadvantage" like in this article:
Sorry about the NY Times links... just paste the url into google and then click on the search results to bypass the login.
A look at this website will show you what this company is doing regarding the New York City streetlights. Included on that site is a cool ray-tracing photo (the third one) which really shows how targeted the light is.
And, of course, you can google for the LED manufacturers who tout the light pollution aspect - like these guys.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.