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Help Map Global Light Pollution, By Starlight
Kilrah_il writes "Light pollution is a big problem these days, affecting not only astronomers and wild life, but also everyone else because of wasted energy. GLOBE at Night aims to raise awareness by urging people to go outside and find out how much light pollution there is in their area. 'The campaign is easy and fun to do. First, you match the appearance of the constellation Orion in the first campaign (and Leo or Crux in the second campaign) with simple star maps of progressively fainter stars found. Then you submit your measurements, including the date, time, and location of your comparison. After all the campaign's observations are submitted, the project's organizers release a map of light-pollution levels worldwide.'"
Isn't most important astronomy these days done by space-based telescopes?
I'm going to go out at night with a big flashlight and find those gosh darn light polluters.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I live in Phoenix, thank you, and 20 miles from the middle of town on the opposite side of a mountain range I can see my way around the house at night without lights -- and with the blinds closed.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Seriously, the light pollution around DFW is so bad I can't see much more than Orion and the Big Dipper. During last night's super moon, the faintest star of the Big Dipper was hard to see. Couldn't make out the Little Dipper at all.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Last time I was at our local (ish) observatory, they had a light pollution map. Is this new?
too simple? telling us what our intentions are (looks like hate/kill/starve/die), does not change what they really are.
deciding which rulers, kings, minions etc.. that are exempted from the aforementioned, should not be difficult? all for one...
nothing cosmic/out of reach, about that?
"It was raining and the pollution was terrible, couldn't even see Rigel."
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I live in Seattle. We can't see the sky through the clouds.
Have gnu, will travel.
but also everyone else because of wasted energy.
I use solar-powered security lights which turn on at night . This helps with safety and security, and the benefits far outweight the cost.
The article is misleading, and referring to night-time illumination as "pollution" is derogatory and disingenuous. If you feel light except starlight is unwanted, then get a parcel of sufficient forested property, and don't cut down your trees, so you can take a walk far enough from civilization to see what you want.
You chose to live in a population concentrated, civilized, area, so you have to deal with the fact that humans are active at night, or concerned about other humans active at night who might be up to no good, and need light to see, protect, and safely move about.
So dark sometimes, you can't see the wall you just walked into!
Need more LED's on my PC's...
it's what we want to happen after we die, right? might as well be, if you have a shyster handy.
do we need anybody/co.gov to supply our will/legacy for us, or does it just look that way to the rest of the wwworld+dog?
>"find out how much light pollution there is in their area."
Tons! But I live in a city and there isn't much I can do about it. Mostly poorly designed street lights. Then there are those neighbors that think their property is so much better with a megawatt of flood lights all over. Ug.
But I would GLADLY put up with even more light pollution if it meant less NOISE pollution from damn modified motorcycles, leaf blowers, barking dogs, horns, sirens, and ESPECIALLY those "boom box cars" projecting their damn bass for 1/2 mile in all directions.
I grew up in a wooded suburb with no streetlights... it was so quiet and dark and peaceful. The sky was so pretty and the air so quiet.... Oh the good 'ol days. Didn't know how important those things were until I lost them.
Whether you like the fact that we have lots of artificial light at night or not, it's silly to refer to it as "pollution." For some people -- astronomers and those who have a serious desire to look up and see the stars -- it's a problem. For others, it's no more a problem than the smell of honeysuckle is pollution. Framing something you don't like as "pollution" is a dishonest way to get people to quickly agree with you about something without giving it serious thought, but it's not terribly useful for promoting honest discussion.
what a concept? pollution? once the infactdead holycost ends, there won't be any left? we knew star gazing & hand waving fit in this maelstrom somewhere? see you at the play-dates etc...
the 'polluting'/remaining light? can't we just get rid of the offending light? vaporize it? make there be less people trying to see stuff in the night? something? less is always better, unless you're a king/minion. then you just have to put out the lights for other people?
babys rule. please fail to discount/trivialize the ongrowing photon showers. thanks.
Light pollution is unnecessary and misdirected lights that do nothing except,
1. illuminate the sky, and
2. it create pollution - power is not free and most of it still comes from polluting sources (nuclear is still only a small fraction and renewable, except for hydroelectric, is less than 1% in more places)
so light pollution is polluting the sky in both meanings. It's silly not to call it pollution.
If you go to http://www.globeatnight.org/ you will find explanations of how to compare the stars you see in the sky with a set scale of images. There is an interactive test so you assure the project your rating of star detail matches their own rating scale. Easy way for people to contribute.
You know who doesn't have a light pollution problem?
North Korea!
(Did I misunderstand the whole Godwin thing?)
I'd like to see a more quantitative study. Why not try to measure the ambient light in these environments? Then we can compare it to the light received in a telescope from various stars in the same local. Most people intuitively know that light pollution makes it so you cannot see the stars easily in brighter cities, why waste the time of multiple people to explain something obvious. Its better to actually get real and scientific data you can use for something worthwhile, like illumination correction, optimal location of observatories, etc.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
there's squinting. sometimes that helps, but can cause wrinkles? damned ('polluting') light?
when one cries, another one sheds a tear in some way? hurt one... it becomes even much bigger than that. the lights are coming up all over now.
best bets; everyone (on our planet) voluntarily disarm ourselves/our 'allies'. carry on as it was originally intended for all of us. we instinctively know what that is.
highly wagered longshots; eugenatics, weapons peddlers, kings/minions, genetically altered mutants/hired goons. media decepticons, adrians, religiously infactdead groanups, fake weather/induced seismicity 'scientists' etc... hold on to your equatorial equilibrium.
in the end...in the middle... & from the beginning, babys rule.
exploding babys; corepirate nazis to be caged (Score:mynutwon; not here you don't)
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 13, @10:50PM (#35476142)
there are plans to put them, (the genetically, surgically & chemically
altered coreprate nazi mutant fear/death mongerers (aka47; eugenatics,
weapons peddlers, kings/minions, adrians, freemasons etc...)) on display
in glass cages, around the world, so that we can remember not to forget...
again, what can happen, based on greed/fear/ego stoking deception.
viewing/feeding will be rationed based on how many more of the creators'
innocents are damaged, or have to be brought home (& they DO have another
one) prematurely.---
so, we'll then expect to see you at any one of the million babys+ /us, beginning with disarmament?
play-dates, conscience arisings, georgia stone editing(s), photon gatherings & a host of
other life promoting/loving events. guaranteed to activate all of our
sense(s) at once. perhaps you have seen our list of pure intentions for
you
you can almost see the stars...
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
at night.
Driving East towards Houston in the middle of the night is like driving into the sunrise even if the sun sat behind you not but a couple of hours ago. Considering I grew up on desert side of the state I know what the sky is supposed to look like at night, and I know what it doesn't look like here, it's just a glow. Yeah, this whole region could use some light shading.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
it's completely up to US. babys rule. perfect math.
Tried that, but it was so dark I couldn't see a damn thing.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I fully expected there to be an iPhone/Android app to download which would use the built in camera to measure the ambient light/light pollution/relative brightness of the stars. Google's sky map app is great for pointing at the sky, twirling around and identifying the constellations and individual stars/objects so targeting Leo/Crux would be easier, and the whole process could be more idiot-proof and less error-prone, especially if the conditions were only as good as their "Magnitude 0.5" chart. (Which are surely the conditions they want to map the most.) It wouldn't be as accurate as a Sky Quality Meter, but it might allow far more people to share the conditions at their location.
The biggest issue being overlooked here seems to be what happens to the light that shines down as intended. This light reflects off things sending light upwards regardless of the lamp design. If you look at the aerial motor race photograph linked below you will notice that most of the light seems to be coming from the track itself, not the lights.
http://www.craigfergusonimages.com/2009/11/aerial-f1-singapore-at-night-by-wong-kin-leong/
Expect astronomers to soon start requesting:
-extra black grades of asphalt
-turning all the lights off whenever possible
-laws against parking white cars under streetlamps
A similar study was done in the late nineties by a UK TV program called tomorrows world where they asked viewers to look through an empty toilet roll at a specific star and count the visible stars around it. The big win was probably the increased interest in astronomy from all the children looking through their 'mini telescopes' rather than the actual data.
--
This is the last time I try to comment on slashdot from an iPhone. Apologies for the crappy formatting
When light is directed downward at the ground some of that light is reflected upward again. Otherwise we could not see what is on the ground. How do you stop light being reflected by the ground? People want to be able to see when walking the streets after dark, play sports at night, etc.
There are some lights that need improvement but great strides have been made. The bad lights can not be found by people describing ambient light.
Another issue is that when people look at the sky they have generally just left a building with white light and probably have a street light in their field of vision. They are effectively night blind and seeing any stars will be difficult.
You can see a real-time light polution map here http://www.die.net/earth/?zoom=1
For a night map of the Earth using Google Maps API: http://www.nightearth.com
Sorry for advertising, but I think it is a somewhat relevant link.
English is your second language, isn't it?
Yeah all that light pollution is surely a bad thing. My jaw totally doesn't drop in awe when a see a city from afar. There's no way it'd be better than looking at stars.
North Korea FTW.
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
Has very little effect on stars. Because they're points, they are very bright. the moon is an extended object and, at full, is probably as *intense* as a star of 10th magnitude.
Where it will cause more problems is that your eye won't open as wide, but that only knocks a couple of magnitudes off.
Now, if there is crap in the air, finding the bit that is a star and not the skyglow, that's more difficult.
TBH, it's more the crap in the air (that you always get) that makes light pollution so bad.
Most people intuitively know that light pollution makes it so you cannot see the stars easily in brighter cities, why waste the time of multiple people to explain something obvious.
There are a lot of obvious things that people don't pay attention to. Just ask Fox News.
Yes please turn out all the lights, it makes it easier for me to rape the ladies when there is no safety net out there
The way we currently use outside nighttime illumination is very wasteful. Large powerful unshielded lamps end up throwing light where is ISN'T needed or wanted wasting power and putting more CO2 into the air. What's even worse is that by having this extra light spilling out we create glare that blinds us by killing off our sensitive night time vision. The human eye is well night adapted. Our iris can open to over 7mm (in younger people) and we have sensitive cells scattered about our retina that activate in low light. As a result we DON'T need excessive levels of light at night to have good vision, the goal should be to emulate the full moon (NOT the noon time SUN!). By creating pockets of glare you actually give the criminal element places to hide from view giving you LESS security at night not more. True there ARE places where strong outdoor night time lighting IS needed (sports stadiums and fields in parks) but here the light should only be on when needed. I often see the lights on at local sports fields all night long with NOBODY playing ball. We need a federal law that will ban wasteful outdoor lighting and set a short time table to have existing lighting that does not meet the standards removed or shut off. Doing this will save a lot of energy (need less oil), reduce power plant CO2 outputs, increase night time security, create some jobs (to replace existing lighting), and reduce light pollution.
By NASA.
Sig this!
I'm from Las Vegas. Stars? I'm not familiar with this Orion. Is he one of the Elvis Impersonators?
Seriously, this strikes me as an ideal app for a starter project. Build an app that is designed to record a pix, the time, and the location of pix and send it to a server. That server can then make decent approximations of what night lights are. THink in terms of wunderground and their personal weather stations.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They have guidelines for selecting lights etc. here.
But no, this is a magnitude 3 submission... the same as if you were a few miles from a city. Can't be valid... then when I take a look at the "more information" of this submission, it says that it is associated with South Carolina (USA). Someone entered their longitude wrong!
I also found a magnitude 4 submission in northern Canada that's somehow associated with Texas!
Given that there are no other similarly located observations (middle of the north Atlantic), you couldn't even get an accurate reading based on an "average" of local observations... Maybe you can throw out lat/long pairs that are nowhere near their stated "location"?
I would be very annoyed at my data set.
One more reason to keep an eye on your money.
It's often bothered me that we can't set up a few days a year -- when meteor showers are expected, perhaps for a lunar eclipse or when there's a comet in the sky -- when everyone who can shuts off their outside lights so people can enjoy the sky. Flying at night show how much light is just wasted energy -- vast empty parking lots with lights pointed upwards, empty streets brightly lit for nonexistent drivers, buildings lit up with nobody at home.
Drive another 20 miles away from the city and you will see more stars than 90+% of the first world's population has seen in their life.
20 miles further out and I'm still in Wal-Mart territory (Cave Creek.)
Now, 90 miles further out and Phoenix is just a glow on the horizon. About like sunset, really -- you can actually see Orion on a clear night. To see the Milky Way, though, you have to be farther than that. Like Show Low or Pinetop. Once I'm on the White Mountain Apache reservation the sky starts to be really worthwhile, and it only takes a four-hour drive.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I live in Vegas...Easily the worst place in the world for light pollution.