291 replies to this topic

[wavefront]

CrazyPanda said: " I'm not sure if that photo posted by wavefront is actually his neighbor"  I don't fabricate anything. If nothing else he is a good example of the crazies that annoy us.

If you ever wish to visit Colorado please send me a PM and then visit me

[MrsM75]

I live in a town of 34,000 population, I live in a broke down part of the town, lol. Fortunate for me there No LED here at the neighborhood where I live. Management here still use Sodium Vapors lights. So far no LED here yet, street lights still Sodium Vapor.

BUT

 

where I observe and I observe right from home and here in the apartment complex where I live and where I sit to observe, there literally 7-8 Sodium vapor lights poles all surrounded me. It literally look "Orange" color here at night like Fall season with all the leaves died, orange, lol. 

 

But seem like my eyes can tolerate it. I have 19 SQM here. And I can see all 7 stars in the Little Dippers. I can see Cancer too. It just the oddest thing, I'm scare that those Sodium Vapor light poles here might give me reflections, lol. 

 

Oddly I'm surrounded by orange Sodium Vapor light poles but my eyes not strain at all, the opposite, I can see all 7 stars in Little Dippers.

 

Not sure if I can still see what I see if these light poles were LED instead though.

[astrolyd]

Live in northwest Georgia, my skies were Bortle 4 but they're increasing rapidly as more people move to my city. I don't do astrophotography and since I'm not the one who buys my stuff (my parents do, and they don't see a point in astronomy when you can just look up the thing you want to see) I can't get a bigger aperture.

[Sebastian_Sajaroff]

Here's my new pain.

IMG_7442.jpg

This is about a half magnitude worse than it's typically been in the winter. It's bad enough that I'm not even bothering to go out and observe

Seriously ? I have to drive 3 hours to get access to such a sky, and that assuming the almost perpetual clouds are playing nice with me.

[Sebastian_Sajaroff]

LP is totally out of control in Quebec and Ontario, government and people don’t care at all.
Result : I have to drive 3 hours to get Bortle 4, and that assuming clouds won’t ruin my night (a different problem).

Two of my neighbours have bright garden lights (what for??), and a warehouse 600 feet away pours even
more light into the scene.

I can read a book outside at midnight during the worst nights, that gives you an idea. Under those circumstances, I’m obviously limited to lunar and planets.

Sometimes, my neighbours close their lights early and it gets better, at least I can observe starry objects and clusters, even a few planetary nebulae.

A few nights a year, I’m lucky enough to have no lights around. My sky improves to B7, which is glorious to me.

Thanks God, there’s solar astronomy.
3/4 of my observational time is spent on the Sun, both on white light and H-Alpha. What a stunning object !

Edited by Sebastian_Sajaroff, 29 September 2024 - 05:40 AM.

[Refractor6]

 Before I left Vancouver and the lower mainland {for good} the light pollution level had met new levels of bad. Forget the nearby neighbors motion detection lights....least of my worries.  The chief offender was the sheer rising amount of condo towers going up near where I last lived in Burnaby with all their top of the building airplane indicator lights and such shining bright. At the end all I could see naked eye was only the brightest stars in the sky on a clear night...that's it.

 

 No wonder the automated computer based telescope doing all the work to see objects while you sit in you living room and watch the images on your smart phone or big screen is taking off in big light polluted cities like this. 

[Silent_Light]

 

Man, when that moon comes up over the house, it's like living on the Vegas strip...the city really needs to do something about it, been complaining and they just don't listen.  Takes a week out of my observing every month, not sure what to do, maybe give up.....

[tuestars]

Live in northwest Georgia, my skies were Bortle 4 but they're increasing rapidly as more people move to my city. I don't do astrophotography and since I'm not the one who buys my stuff (my parents do, and they don't see a point in astronomy when you can just look up the thing you want to see) I can't get a bigger aperture.

Why go to a concert if you can listen to songs on Spotify? Why go to the Super Bowl when it's airing live on TV? Why take the kids to Walt Disney World when you can look up pictures of Magic Kingdom and do a horrible Mickey Mouse impression? It's basically the same thing!

I'm sorry your parents aren't so supportive. Hoping you manage to get more aperture soon.

[csrlice12]

Why go to a concert if you can listen to songs on Spotify? Why go to the Super Bowl when it's airing live on TV? Why take the kids to Walt Disney World when you can look up pictures of Magic Kingdom and do a horrible Mickey Mouse impression? It's basically the same thing!

I'm sorry your parents aren't so supportive. Hoping you manage to get more aperture soon.

While I agree with what you're saying.....for the most part, astronomy is an adult hobby.  The hobby killer scope is almost a right of passage.  Most who get serious about astronomy wait till they have a job/income to support it.  I certainly couldn't and wouldn't buy a kid an AP scope and mount...l might buy them an Omni 102XLT or a 6" dob,  but the premium gear will be for them to acquire, usually after they're grown and on their own.  Most of us didn't get our gear till they've left and their room becomes our astroroom.

[yuzameh]

UK went led some time ago, and it is a serious nuisance.  However, given them their due, in this county they didn't just replace the heads, they spent a lot of money removing the old lamposts (talking street, not major roads as they come under central government funding even if maintained by local government) and using a CAD like system to reposition the new ones at a far lower frequency (not only less per side of road, but staggered, ie not directly opposite each other, but alternating which side).

 

I've also got a sneaky suspicion that they replace the light part of the heads recently as they seem to point more down now and have a less wide luminance cone, and the sky glare looks a bit less.

 

Still not great, for example you can readily see colour at night now, unlike with old low pressure sodium days (high pressure sodium and especually mercury vapour were also quiet bad), once used to make distant towns when viewed from rural observing sites glow nicely orange as if radioactive.

 

Also, I think the albedo of tarmac/asphalt has the same albedo as Lunar Maria, and we know how bright they are at full Moon, even if the highlands are brighter.

 

No, the real fundamental pain (pain in the fundament) is the motion security cameras that come default set to light up if a molecule jiggles to much within a hundred yards, and a lot of people tend to leave anything they buy set on defaults.

 

[When I start a new computer, or upgrade an OS like m$ which loves to reset defaults traditionally, especially nosy ones, or install new software - especially browsers, I tend to have to spend ages deactivating lots of defaults, which invariably are all very clever but highly unnecessary and tend to slow stuff down.  I started long ago as a computer user and find some assistance annoying (eg spell as you type or predictive text) but nowadays OSes seem to want to use you or restrict their flexibility of function at the human interface level, not necessarily precluding some linuxes].

 

EDIT : as humidity is never missing here the above photo of the petrol station reminds me of when the best nights used to be, after a fast front or storm had passed through and the air scrubbed by rain with there still being enough of a breeze (but not too much), skies only clearing about Sunset.  These used to be the best skies around here for visual, seeing may still have been a bit damaged but transparency was great (in my view around here you can have one or the other and I always preferred good transparency as averaging seeing is fine for extended objects).  Now as in the above wet station photo the LED just get reflected even more, even if they are recessed, small and heavily downward aligned.

Edited by yuzameh, 01 October 2024 - 01:28 PM.

[KD5NRH]

There are just 2 major clusters of light pollution which would be very easy and cheap for my town to fix, but it would require lighting regulation of private business, which is a can of worms that is unlikely to gain any traction.

Interestingly, one of the best examples you can point at is Fredericksburg TX.  Only 11,000 people, but the highest concentration of millionaires per capita in Texas, (47th in the nation) and a Dark Sky Community 70 miles from Austin and San Antonio.  It's a tourist trap, but a great one to visit: it still feels like a tiny town, thanks to also having sign ordinances that keep the usual taller-and-bigger signage battles from cluttering it up, and decent lighting so it doesn't glow like a prison all night.

Most of the tourism comes from the local wineries, (which are nearly all also entertainment and event venues that can draw surprisingly large crowds) German restaurants (and we're picky about German food in Texas) and Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. (Also a Dark Sky Park, but if you're planning to bring your scope, weeknights are way better for observing.  Weekends will be crowded and the best spots to set up are some less desirable campsites that rarely fill up during the week.)

So basically, it's exactly the kind of place that most often turns into a major light polluter, but by heading that off with local ordinances, they've kept stargazing as an option to bring in even more tourists.

 

By the way, if you ever want the grand tour of the out of the way parts of Fredericksburg, just ask Google Maps to get you to the HEB.  I still don't know why, but it took me through at least six turns and a couple of miles when it would have been a half mile down 290, left turn and then a couple blocks down the cross street.

[KD5NRH]

While I agree with what you're saying.....for the most part, astronomy is an adult hobby.  The hobby killer scope is almost a right of passage.  Most who get serious about astronomy wait till they have a job/income to support it.

Lots of kids take up a musical instrument that costs way more than a decent 8" Dob.  Especially if you get lucky and find a good used one.

[rockethead26]

I thought you folks would appreciate this neighbor about 6 houses down from us in the Dark Sky City known as Flagstaff. I have reported him to the city's Light Trespass Ordinance Violations department. We'll see what happens. He is lit up like this every night. Glad I don't live across the street! He has about 17-20 6" square LED panels mounted all facing out. Spotlight city!

 

Edited by rockethead26, 03 October 2024 - 08:54 PM.

[RLK1]

I thought you folks would appreciate this neighbor about 6 houses down from us in the Dark Sky City known as Flagstaff. I have reported him to the city's Light Trespass Ordinance Violations department. We'll see what happens. He is lit up like this every night. Glad I don't live across the street! He has about 17-20 6" square LED panels mounted all facing out. Spotlight city!

 

Light Trespass copy.jpg

Please let us know what the outcome is on the light trespass violation.  

[rockethead26]

Please let us know what the outcome is on the light trespass violation.  

Will do.

[kevin6876]

I thought you folks would appreciate this neighbor about 6 houses down from us in the Dark Sky City known as Flagstaff. I have reported him to the city's Light Trespass Ordinance Violations department. We'll see what happens. He is lit up like this every night. Glad I don't live across the street! He has about 17-20 6" square LED panels mounted all facing out. Spotlight city!

 

Light Trespass copy.jpg

Likely some younger adult, completely unaware of LP laws and completely ignorant to the term altogether.  Hopefully in for an awakening!  Good job with reporting.  That's the right thing to do. 

 

I would, from time to time, drop one of DarkSky.org's 5-Basic Principles to Responsible Outdoor Lighting at Night pamphlet printouts in the mailbox to aggregious offenders.  Surprisingly, after sending like 3 or 4 of them to the same address (usually the first 2 don't muster attention), 6 out 10 offender's lighting habits change for the better.  The human phsycology of doing it this way is amazing sometimes!

[rockethead26]

Likely some younger adult, completely unaware of LP laws and completely ignorant to the term altogether.  Hopefully in for an awakening!  Good job with reporting.  That's the right thing to do. 

 

I would, from time to time, drop one of DarkSky.org's 5-Basic Principles to Responsible Outdoor Lighting at Night pamphlet printouts in the mailbox to aggregious offenders.  Surprisingly, after sending like 3 or 4 of them to the same address (usually the first 2 don't muster attention), 6 out 10 offender's lighting habits change for the better.  The human phsycology of doing it this way is amazing sometimes!

Hi Kevin,

 

I would normally agree with the idea to drop off some educational pamphlets in the mailbox, but this guy is not young, is a recluse and has a habit over the last 8 years of making himself a politically motivated nuisance to the neighborhood with lights, signage and outdoor audio. I have never seen him outside of his house. It will be interesting to see if the city can do anything about it.