Category Archives: light pollution

Preserving the Night Sky

I’m a member of the International Dark-Sky Association. These guys are the light pollution authorities of the world. If you visit their website, you can find all kinds of information about the importance of dark skies (and not just to astronomers), as well as how to make your block, your community, your city, your state, a dark-sky site. They have a link to lighting practices and equipment that will help preserve dark skies while maintaining safety in your community. And, many of their suggestions help preserve energy expenses (an important factor).

The community I live in has some energy- and light-pollution-cutting lighting practices, although some neighbors still think it’s great to throw light up to the sky indiscriminately. In our neighborhood we managed to get our local utility to put up “screens” around the nearest streetlight so that the light shines down on the street, like it’s supposed to, and not in our bedroom window, or bathing our yard.

One of the more illustrative pages on their site is a series of links to various places on Earth, showing the light pollution from satellite’s-eye views. Check it out, and do your part to reduce light pollution, save energy, and preserve the beauty of the night skies for everyone to appreciate.

Of Light Pollution and Blackouts

I happened across a pair of images on the Picture of the Week at the SkyNews.com web site that illustrate all too well what it is we drown out with our over-dependence on lights.

These were taken by Todd Carlson, who lives north of Toronto. What impressed me about the first image is that I’ve previously only seen the Milky Way like that in the desert U.S. southwest or at sea under very dark skies. It was taken during the height of the blackout. The second image was snapped the next night, after the lights came back on. While I fully understand why we need lighting for our cities, it is a crying shame that so much of that light bounces off to the sky, and is so wasteful of energy. Sometimes progress comes at too high a price.

One of the unexpected consequences of the Big Blackout of 2003 was the re-appearance of the stars in the skies over the darkened cities of Northeast US and parts of Canada. People who hadn’t seen the stars in some time were remarkably impressed with how beautiful the night sky could be. I often wonder if they missed the stars the next night — when the lights came back on.

What a difference a blackout makes!
Lights OUT!
Lights ON!!
Lights ON!!