Please turn off your lights if you don't need them!

What is light pollution?

Light pollution is one of the most dramatic changes in our environment. Assimilation lamps in greenhouses, security lights in gardens, illuminated roads, xenon projections onto monuments and advertising boards along each highway. A side effect of the light seems inextricably urbanisation and the 24-hour economy. In an industrialized area like Western Europe it is virtually impossible to find even places where the sky is really dark.


Chigaco Night, photographer Jim Richardson

About two-third of the world's population and 99% of the population in Europe and the Americas (except Alaska and Hawaii) live in areas where the night sky is above average ' polluted ' with light. The sight on the Milky way has disappeared at one-fifth of the world population, more than two-thirds of the u.s. population and more than half of the European population.

Source - www.platformlichthinder.nl... (translated)

It's a shame that there is so much light pollution. I've never seen the Milky way, it's one of my dreams to see it though.

Here is a video about light pollution that explains it well.




please, turn off your lights, and give us our night back.

ITs pretty bad when dark skies have to be designated for viewing.
It looks like Arizona doesn't care that it ruins any dark skies that it has. But that doesn't surprise me, considering how horrid their resource use is.

IDA

Originally posted by Jauk3
It's a shame that there is so much light pollution. I've never seen the Milky way, it's one of my dreams to see it though.

Get a good pair of binoculars, it's hard to miss. Anyways my old astronomy teacher tried to get legislation passed to convert streetlights, into only outputing the light downwards. The streetlight near my house always drowns out the night sky. You can actually turn them off by flooding the light sensor with a laser, but I don't think that is legal, and the neighbors might not approve.

I'm going to go on a limb here, but what if the accelerated light pollution in the past 100 yrs to current, was/is engineered to keep us from looking up? like our ancestors did, if so what do they not want us to see? or is it as time goes by and people don't look up as much, they are easier to control without to much backlash. I'd love to move somewhere that I could see the night sky as it should be viewed.

Originally posted by Freezer

Originally posted by Jauk3
It's a shame that there is so much light pollution. I've never seen the Milky way, it's one of my dreams to see it though.

Get a good pair of binoculars, it's hard to miss. Anyways my old astronomy teacher tried to get legislation passed to convert streetlights, into only outputing the light downwards. The streetlight near my house always drowns out the night sky. You can actually turn them off by flooding the light sensor with a laser, but I don't think that is legal, and the neighbors might not approve.

I have a good pair of binoculars and I've been looking at stars and clusters but what I ment is that I want to see our Milky Way with the naked eye like you saw in the video.

So you want the whole World to stumble about in darkness so you can look at the stars when you feel like it? Couldnt you just buy a telescope then we could be safe at night again?

I wish somebody would shut that goddamn moon off

The moon has to be my single biggest gripe with light pollution lol and I live near a petro chemical refinery, was hoping to get a few glimpses at mars but i'll have to wait until at least the 9th until the moon disappears. Magnitude should stay the same though at least.

Oh and by the way, you will not be able to see what that video shows you through the naked eye, just sayin.

You do realize that it isn't household lights that are the issue but the thousands of municipal and city lights that line streets and highways at night that do this.

They are as low intensity as can be afforded just so those of us outside in the dark can have an idea where we are going.

depending where you are pick a moonless night find a park away from the city it aint that hard.

I do realize that, most of the light pollution here in the Netherlands is actually mostly from greenhouses.
Heres a pic from the Netherlands, I am actually quite happy I live in the north parth.

Most of the yellow spots are glasshouses, 1 Hectare of greenhouse usually gives more light pollution than a whole city. We should cover them up somehow.

how am i suppose to see what im doing with my lights off... ?

Originally posted by Jauk3
I have a good pair of binoculars and I've been looking at stars and clusters but what I ment is that I want to see our Milky Way with the naked eye like you saw in the video.

edit on 5-3-2012 by Jauk3 because: (no reason given)

Ah ok, yea you are right, if you live in or near a city most of the milky way will be washed out. I live near the city, but can still faintly see galaxies and such with my binoculars, but of course it doesn't compare going to a rural area and seeing the sky lit up with stars. I think if the light fixtures were just designed so they only project the light downwards, that would make a huge difference.

Your eyes are naturally built to see in the dark. The only reason it seems hard to do, is because any source of light shining in the area will throw off your pupils. Street Lights are bad. Besides.. humans are not nocturnal. We should be sleeping at night. Greed had forced us into a 24 hour world.

I've seen the Milky Way before. After Hurricane Isabel came through Virginia and the power was off for about a week, it was visible to the naked eye. I stared at it for hours.. it's truely beautiful. I hope that I can soon move out to a more rural area and see it more often.

Yes, when you first see the Milky Way away from lights it is absolutely awesome, I must admit. But most of us do not have the power to turn off more than a porch light or two. Even if lights are designed to point downwards the idea is to light the intersections, which reflect light back up. I sympathize, but it's difficult to accommodate shutting down civilization so you can see some stars.

darn I wanted to use the line
" what...!!!???
the goernment loses SKIDS of money in Iraq and now they want me to go to the bathroom in the dark so I can save three cents a year?...."

instead im just happy I spend time in the bush where there are NO LIGHTs and the sky is just awesome
thanks OP for helping me realise I'm lucky for that

First time I saw the Milky Way with the naked eye was when I was young in rural Idaho. One flip of the porch light and the sky was magnificently filled. The video looks a bit "enhanced" and it artfully done, but the Milky Way won't look like that for you.

While my time in New Mexico could be summed up to a less favorable situation, 5 years of clear unpolluted night skies -- meteor showers, Milky Way, planets......I envy Galileo.

I used to tell my now ex gf all the time how I feel robbed!!!! I have serious anger over missing out on the night sky, it upsets me an extreme amount. Just an FYI anyone who knows me and was asked who is the last person you know of that would get angry, ever, they would choose me.