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Why We Need to Keep Our Night Skies Dark (Video)
Kelly
Beatty has a unique perspective on the world of astronomy:
Beatty's been on the staff of Sky & Telescope magazine
for nearly 40 years as a writer and editor, including a stint heading
"Night Sky" magazine. He's also written what's been called "the
definitive guide for the armchair astronomer," and teaches astronomy
to people of all ages. (He even has an asteroid named after him.)
Besides being fascinated with the objects we can see in Earth's skies,
Beatty takes the skies themselves seriously: his Twitter handle is NightSkyGuy for a reason. We talked a few weeks ago, in
dark-skied rural Maine, about his involvement with the International Dark-Sky Association,
and why you should care about ubiquitous light pollution, even if you
don't have a deep interest in star-gazing. (And it's not just to be courteous
to your neighbors.)
I find it's best to get above 10,000 ft, as rural as possible, and preferably the first clear night after a good rain. Oh, and when it's a new moon.
Having just been out in the Elk Mountains of Colorado, southern end of the Maroon Bells, for 2 nights camping at 11k+, the night sky before the waning moon came up was phenomenal. Great view of the Milky Way!
I have yet to acquire the appropriate camera gear, or telescope, for duration shots/filming, but I'll get there eventually!
I have been in well-lighted gated communities where the lighting was well designed; you could clearly see around you for safety but light pollution was minimized, such that you could luck up and enjoy a great view of the sky. How did they accomplish this? They installed the lights properly, such that all of the light was aimed down at the ground on and surrounding walkways. It was very safe, minimized light pollution (you cannot eliminate it because some light will reflect off the ground and of course off of fog), and of course, very "green" because all of the light produced was aimed at the ground.
I live in Lee, NH - on most nights, except when the moon is at or within a couple of days of full, I can see the Milky Way very clearly - I consider our sky to be very dark, but by astronomical standards it isn't (compared to oh, say, north-central Maine, Antarctica, northern Canada, and central Australia - or North Korea where the only people who have lights is tyrants). The only (clear) nights I cannot see the Milky Way is Friday Nights, when the NASCAR track has events going on - when I drive by there it pisses me off. The lights are installed improperly, spraying probably >70% of the light produced straight up into the sky. This is commonplace in the city, where people are ignorant asses and I get that, but this is rural NH. Why the hell are you assholes at Lee Speedway wasting all that electricity to produce wasted light, rendering the sky unviewable? When it comes up for vote, I will be voting to NOT give them an extended season, and if the vote is at a town meeting I will explain why - it won't be the noise, nor the traffic, but the light pollution.
I don't mind the noise of the cars (hell I love engines as I'm a motorhead myself, having driven many muscle, sports and exotic cars, and having rebuilt several engines myself, but the idea of a race where you only turn left bores me to tears) but the light pollution is awful; it ruins one of the best aspects of living in a rural area.
Lighting fixtures are stupid-easy to select and install properly.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I could see having a country-wide holiday every year where the lights around the city would be shut off early in the evening. We have plenty of useless holidays already, why not one that actually gives city kids a chance to see the stars?
Bull.
Criminals work our neighborhoods during the day. Because that's when everyone is at work. The reason they come out in business districts at night is because that is when the people are not there. Except for muggers. They go where the people are, brightly lit or not.
The whole light == security thing is a sales pitch by the power companies who want to sell street lighting.
Have gnu, will travel.
Flagstaff, it should be noted, was the first official international dark sky city. Every time of year except for now (the two-month rainy season), you can almost guarantee a good night's viewing. The seeing is generally better than Tucson (we're at 7000 ft/2100 m, so less atmosphere), though it can really cool off at night (again, less atmosphere; low tonight is 52F/11C). The streetlights are fewer and low-pressure sodium, but the main light-pollution difference is that high power floodlights are banned.
And yes, I am an astronomer here in Flagstaff.
Actually, I do work with audio/video on occasion. I rarely do color intense work at night. I save that for early in the day when my eyes are fresh. I'll work on tweaking avisynth scripts (to test the next day) or scene cutting and audio work at night but that's it.
Flux doesn't silently dick with the colors, it's blatantly obvious. There's no doubt at all that it's shifted to warm colors. In fact, I hated it at first (defaults were too much) but week after week I found myself wanting warmer colors.
(Same AC that posted about f.lux. I need to register..... some day.)
I had a nice dark spot. It was far from any homes or schools. It was the perfect place to put a PRISON? Coleman Correctional is now there, with a zillion lights.