patrickg
Veteran Member
Yes a cool picture but unfortunately however pretty, it is polution. Like pouring oil on water makes a pretty rainbow of colors on the surface which most of us think a bad idea. Using so much energy and resources to make light and then waste it lighting up the night sky to ruin astronomy, astrophotography, romantic meteor watching, etc.
There is an international dark-sky association and lots of similar activity trying in the face of tremendous stupidity and complacency to preserve our heritage of skies dark enough for a child to see the milky way or learn the constellations. An excerpt from an English dark skies site.
Should we put all the lights out? Of course not.
We need light at night for many obvious reasons. CfDS and friends would like to see
BETTER lights which shine downwards where the light is needed and NOT
UPWARDS where it isn't.
With better light direction, the same area can be lit to the same brightness with a less
powerful bulb, without being too bright and blotting out the sky.
Better lighting saves energy and therefore is environmentally friendly both to the skies,
and to the atmosphere through the reduction in power requirements from fossil fuelled
power stations.
Better lighting gives us back something like the dark skies that people enjoyed long
ago.
The light from the rest of the Universe takes hundreds, thousands or millions of years to
reach our eyes.
What a pity to lose it on the last millisecond of its journey!
A flood of artificial light has left
one in five humans unable to see
the bright band of the Milky Way
at night, according to a new study
of the global effects of light
pollution.
Visit www.darksky.org
There is an international dark-sky association and lots of similar activity trying in the face of tremendous stupidity and complacency to preserve our heritage of skies dark enough for a child to see the milky way or learn the constellations. An excerpt from an English dark skies site.
Should we put all the lights out? Of course not.
We need light at night for many obvious reasons. CfDS and friends would like to see
BETTER lights which shine downwards where the light is needed and NOT
UPWARDS where it isn't.
With better light direction, the same area can be lit to the same brightness with a less
powerful bulb, without being too bright and blotting out the sky.
Better lighting saves energy and therefore is environmentally friendly both to the skies,
and to the atmosphere through the reduction in power requirements from fossil fuelled
power stations.
Better lighting gives us back something like the dark skies that people enjoyed long
ago.
The light from the rest of the Universe takes hundreds, thousands or millions of years to
reach our eyes.
What a pity to lose it on the last millisecond of its journey!
A flood of artificial light has left
one in five humans unable to see
the bright band of the Milky Way
at night, according to a new study
of the global effects of light
pollution.
Visit www.darksky.org
