My Dark Skies

[Radar]

Was looking at this pic earlier. Thought it deserved to be posted.

I'm lucky here in Western Australia, our skies are pretty dark.

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/elights/earthlights.jpg

With everyone becoming more "green" these days, it's possible that this light pollution could be on the decline in the coming decade.

Ray

[phoenix]

Hey Ray

We are pretty lucky here in oz compared to other countries. But there is still alot more improving to be done to get rid of this light pollution.

Great pic though.



Cheers Jason :pipethinker:

[rmcpb]

Its amazing how the borders of countries can be traced by the light pollution.

That photo has been a classic for a while now but it always amazes me and makes me thankful we live "down under" :Chessy_Smile:

[AstroBob]

Great photo. Just goes to show how much energy humans waste though. All that light going straight out into space is such a waste, not to mention night sky pollutant.

[wakaleo]

For a long time I've likened humanity's negative practices as impacting on the Earth like a cancerous growth, and nothing shows it to better effect than this image.

[Draig]

I couldn't agree more.

Beautiful as this photo is, there is something so profoundly saddening about it.

Cheers Colin

[Mick]

I agree also.

At the moment I'm reading a book by James Lovelock called The Revenge of Gaia. It has this very image to illustrates the massive amounts of energy that the human race consumes. I haven't finished reading this book yet but I find Lovelock's view on Ecology very interesting.

[AstroTasmania]

Hi All,

The increasing sky pollution due to burning fossil fuels to power illuminated govt & public buildings, churches & monuments, leave office building lights on all night etc. which we do NOT need, is a total waste of energy, increases the cost of electricity, burns more coal than we need to, and lights up the astronomers sky, what a waste of two natural resources! (Fuel & Night Sky)

This past year has also seen an increase of illuminated sports gounds, which belt out trillions of lumens into the night skies, often, these areas are also lit up when not being used, very sad for the local amateur astronomer, and the rate payer, us.

What can we do to reduce this waste & cost and improve our dark skies?

Clear skies...

Shevill

[Radar]

What can we do to reduce this waste & cost and improve our dark skies?


At the end of the day, the average Joe doesn't really care about astronomers or even the night sky in some cases, but with awareness growing about greenhouse gases, the green card (nothing to do with U.S immigration) is the one to play with local councils and concerned citizens.

In fact, if streets and houses and buildings all used sensor lights instead of static lights, security would be increased greatly and tonnes of energy would be saved, not to mention the restoration of the night sky.

At the moment, if an offender (like Astro Dave) were in your street thinking about taking something out of your front yard observatory (http://www.asignobservatory.com/), the offender probably could, because the streetlights are on all the time, you wouldn't know if someone was in your street hiding and sneaking around. But if your street was in darkness at night time because your streetlights were using sensor lights, you would know that someone had moved through recently when certain lights came on, you would know where they had stopped and even what direction they went just by watching which lights go off first. Something like this is bound to annoy a would-be burglar than static lighting (which obviously hasn't stopped criminals so far).

Now we just have to make the local councils see this common logic.

Ray

[AstroTasmania]

Hi Ray,

And therein lies the problem!!

Clear skies...