291 replies to this topic

[athous]

I really loathe all the LED lights. To me they create more eye strain and also emit an unnatural glow. Cities are all gaga over them since the cost nothing to run compared to their old sodium lights that were like 500watts per. 

[PXR-5]

My neighbour collects search lights and plays with them....

[Larry10]

I am plagued with street lights on either side of my city lot as well as a security light on the wall of the elementary school across the street. My small back yard has two mature maples blocking the sky which would cost a small fortune to remove. But even if removed all the adjacent homeowners (both sides and rear center, rear right, and rear left)  have lights on the backs of their homes.

 

I don't have an electronic meter. Here's the "meter" I used: I sat on my front porch steps with all the lights off in my house and I was able to clearly read the classified ads in the local paper from the available light. That's about a 7 or 8 point type size on the "paper meter". Normal news text, if my memory swerves me well, is usually 10 point in most papers.

 

I'll take the paper out again some evening soon to look at the classifieds homes for sale section.

[Lokifish]

That bright light on the far left . . . my neighbors have the same all night, every night lights on the back of their house.

 

 

 

[earlyriser]

These exterior lights mounted to a Walgreens are the newest addition to my neighborhood. At least the CCT appears to be more reasonable 3000K. This is the third new LED light installation in the business district of my neighborhood since March of this year. I measured a light level of 9 foot candles at the parking spaces adjacent to the building. The IES recommends a range of maintained foot candles of 0.75-3.0 for urban parking lots, so we are at about three times that. To get an idea of how much uplight these produce, look at the light pattern on the wall below each light. The same amount of light is aimed skyward. And of course, the lights are on all night. The exposure was set at EV4 (1/30 sec at f2.8 and 1600 ISO), which is normally what I use to maintain consistency between shots.

 

 

Edited by earlyriser, 25 October 2017 - 04:54 PM.

[Flyingsnow]

I like to observe mainly right out my front window on the second floor and there is a street lamp right in front of my house. It's one of those bright white halogens. It kills me every time. I've contemplated getting a BB gun and shooting it out. Lol

[TareqPhoto]

Thank GOD that he gave me a place to live, it isn't great or super dark or enough dark, but now i have to live with it or get used to it, after all it sounds my gear can see the stars easily, i am passing the visual fun, my scope and binocular giving nice visual but not my naked eyes, so i can assure that this area where i live isn't that bad after all, and during late late night until earl early morning before the twilight the clarity of stars are good enough as long there are no clouds or haze/humidity.

 

Today it is clear sky nice bright stars, but i am still at home lazy and i am not in mood for AP this month, i hope next month i start over again.

 

I really don't know what is affecting the sky, one night it is super clear, another night it is like something wrong or kind of layer to minimize the clarity, what causes that? air? sun heat even at night? pollution? ?? ??????

[SonnyE]

Post my pain?

I have rheumatoid arthritis.

But I also have drugs!

 

For stupidity, I have filters.

(But they don't work for two legged stupidity, unfortunately.) 

[csrlice12]

Yet Walgreens turns their sign off at night.......

[SonnyE]

Yet Walgreens turns their sign off at night.......

...It's to save electricity... 

[CrazyPanda]

Just noticed a brand new billboard in my town about 3 miles away. Super bright LED lights illuminating the sign from the bottom rather than the top.

It's tragic.

There's a commercial lot for sale just near the end of my street and I fear someone will buy it to do the same thing.

Depending on how much that plot costs, I'd be tempted to buy it, stick a lighting restriction on the deed, and then sell it...

Edited by CrazyPanda, 27 October 2017 - 11:21 PM.

[Lokifish]

I have tried to post this multiple times but it has not been easy, so bear with me.

 

Recently, criminals tried breaking into my yard while me and my four year old daughter were quietly enjoying the stars in a tarp wall observing area due to the garbage in my post above. We both overheard comments about how stupid folks (like my neighbors) were for leaving the lights on for them as well as talk of heinous actions right before my motion sensing lights came on resulting in my daughter screaming in way I hope no parent ever experiences. According to the investigating officer, we should consider ourselves lucky as there's been a rash of such instances lately resulting in at least one shooting, and the target seems to be well lit yards. Since the incident our daughter will only sleep in our bed and has night terrors about "bad stars" trying to get her.

 

So as far as my family is concerned, my neighbors and the "you have no right" crowd can get stuffed. 

[earlyriser]

Wow, that is horrible. So, the crooks are targeting well lit yards? Wonder why that is?

 

I leave my lights off when I go to bed so that I don't draw attention to myself or my possessions, and so that my house always looks the same at night whether I'm home or not. I figure it would take a lot of guts to shine a flashlight into a window to see what's inside, but I don't really know if what I'm doing works or not. Trying to figure out what criminals will do based on what we would do seems flawed since they probably don't think like we do. If they did, they wouldn't be criminals in the first place.

[Lokifish]

I spoke with a couple retired officers (I'm from a law enforcement family) and it was explained like this. A well lit yard is a "gift horse" to a stupid, desperate, or arrogant criminals as it gives the ability to see everything without investing effort in casing. So it was an invite for such individuals. The "lucky" part for us was such criminals are either the nervous type or the don't care type and, short of "tweaked out" types, are the most dangerous for obvious reasons. What also didn't help in my case we've had to install window blackouts. So the criminals walked right past three windows, one of which is to a room that was occupied by my wife and had lights on. The lack of window blackouts alone could have prevented this.

 

As a former cybersec analyst I get where the former officers were coming from and blame myself for not seeing it sooner.

[caveman_astronomer]

I have tried to post this multiple times but it has not been easy, so bear with me.

 

Recently, criminals tried breaking into my yard while me and my four year old daughter were quietly enjoying the stars in a tarp wall observing area due to the garbage in my post above. We both overheard comments about how stupid folks (like my neighbors) were for leaving the lights on for them as well as talk of heinous actions right before my motion sensing lights came on resulting in my daughter screaming in way I hope no parent ever experiences. According to the investigating officer, we should consider ourselves lucky as there's been a rash of such instances lately resulting in at least one shooting, and the target seems to be well lit yards. Since the incident our daughter will only sleep in our bed and has night terrors about "bad stars" trying to get her.

 

So as far as my family is concerned, my neighbors and the "you have no right" crowd can get stuffed. 

I had a drunk-sounding person creep up on my backyard observing site one morning a few weeks ago.

[Astroman007]

Yikes! What stopped him from creeping up all the way? Passing out?

 

Martin.

[Lokifish]

caveman now has me wondering how often stuff like this happens. 

[earlyriser]

I guess I'm lucky. All I have had to confront so far are eight-point bucks and the occasional underage neighbor kid disposing of his empty beer cans over my fence.

[t_image]

Here's a little story that might put things into perspective for people that don't normally consider preserving the night sky to be an important issue.

 

At its worst, haze at Grand Canyon National Park was so severe that people could not see across the 10-mile wide canyon. The Navajo Power Generating Station, about 80 miles north of the Grand Canyon, was thought to be the source of the pollution causing this haze. In 1985 researchers at Colorado State University injected methane-containing deuterium into the power plant's smoke emissions. Deuterium is not normally present in the air. When monitors determined the presence of deuterium in canyon air, researchers were able to demonstrate that the plant was responsible for much of the canyon haze. The result was a landmark settlement in which Navajo's owners agreed to a 90-percent cutback in sulfur dioxide emissions by 1999.

 

We have a situation now where the galaxy is being obscured from 90% of the US population by light pollution. How is this any less of a loss than not being able to see across the Grand Canyon? I'll bet it cost a lot more to cut those emissions by 90% than it would to cut light pollution by gross polluters like this guy.

Except that's not the whole story or lesson here.

The plant was about to close this year, and still is in real jeopardy of closing,

because cheaper ways of producing electricity (natural gas v. mined coal) are a real economic threat to the plant's survival.

The closure of the plant and the supplying mine will threaten the livelihood of many Native Americans that are connected with the jobs it provides...

https://www.bizjourn...aying-open.html

So newer/cheaper technology will give way, regardless of the consequences of supplanting the old way...

Just ask the descendants of the original residents of the Grand Canyon continent....

 

 

 

[woodbuck]

An old strip mine has begun producing again near me and they operate at night with lots of lights illuminating the face and it affects the sky more than the entire town does.  I have it much better than most, living on the edge of a little oasis of darkish skies on national forest land.  If you look at a dark sky map of west Virginia you'll see an area of decent skies stretching from up near spruce knob down to the Lewisburg area, for this I am thankful but its getting worse year by year (thanks snowshoe and now this new mine) but what is depressing is if you start zooming out on that light pollution map you'll see that it is surrounded by intolerable light pollution, my point is there is no where else to go, to get any better I'd have to head west and cross the Mississippi.  Not just for observing but for other outdoor activities I need these "empty" spots on the map and believe others would benefit also, but these empty spots are becoming few and far between until one day there will be no spot unpaved and unlit, I find this very depressing, it makes me angry and sad.  If more people would find these little empty spots valuable they would help to preserve them is what the conservation crowd always says, but in my expierence making an area or activity popular only brings more people, and when people come they bring trash, pavement, development and lots of lights

[caveman_astronomer]

Light pollution maps of the Eastern US look like a Petri dish that has almost been overgrown with microbes.

 

Maps of the Western US look like there aren't as many nutrients in the agar.  Not enough water?

 

Humans = microbes?

 

[Astroman007]

Ha, that's one way of putting it! Although, when I look at the light pollution maps, the blotches of light and the way they connect with each other reminds me of the fuzzy white mold on flakes of hay...in this case, luminescent mold. It's hard to view the omnipresent spots, blights, and blotches of light spreading across the land in a positive fashion, to be sure. However, I don't think humans are the problem per se; it's the artificial lighting. If the humans could be educated on the harmful effects of excessive light in certain wavelengths, both on humans and animals, they probably wouldn't be so keen to share their light with the entire countryside...or even subject themselves to it. Of course, this presupposes that people would actually care to learn, or have an attention span long enough to register what you are telling them. And when was the last time that happened? Trying to communicate with iPhone-addicted zombies is not the easiest thing...

 

Wishing you guys many power outages and clear, dark skies,

 

Martin.

Edited by Astroman007, 22 November 2017 - 02:54 PM.

[Ron359]

This is my "pain";  the hugely missed opportunity that the changeover from Na vapor to LEDs gave us, the astronomically interested, to make a real difference and contribution to the chorus of medical and environmental folks to reduce light pollution.   As I've posted in various threads in this forum over past couple years individual complaints make very little difference to the power generators and lighting design engineers.

 

  But real astro-organizations that represent "us", like the IDA and A.L. could have taken advantage of the opportunity of the changeover to really lobby and have a seat at the designers table when designs and decisions were being made.  The A.L. does absolutely nothing but take in a lot of money from hundreds of astronomy clubs (combined from thousands of members) and puts out a quarterly color mag in return filled with stuff we see here or anywhere else on-line all the time.  The IDA has made some progress so we see better shields put on much brighter LEDS with daylight color temps. and a few designated dark sky parks. The changeover is well underway in most large cities around the globe and the war is lost.  

 

The results are in and you can read them here, if you can stand the pain:

 

http://www.skyandtel...ion-increasing/

[rekokich]

http://www.cnn.com/2...tudy/index.html

[dpastern]

http://www.cnn.com/2...tudy/index.html

I saw that article and had to laugh...the population majority don't care about us.  Politicians don't care about us.  We're weirdo geek minorities with no rights.  Some will say I'm being cynical or negative, but LP will NOT get better, it will get worse.  MUCH worse.