Bright Lights Big Cities

[Roger the Cabin Boy]

Something fascinating about this.  

Note that the lights have gone out in North Korea.

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=1438

[The Rat]

YOU'VE JUST RUINED MY DAY!

I've seen pictures just like it before and I always waste waaaay too much time going over them, now I'll be doing it again!    

[monkeyhanger]

aka light pollution. Try looking at:

http://www.britastro.org/dark-skies/index.html

An experiment was done several years ago. A digital image of the 'dark' sky was taken and then the starlight etc. was extracted, to leave glow from sodium and tungsten bulb lights. Most of the Earth suffers from this type of pollution and it is a hot topic in the astronomical community. Radio noise also has an impact on radio astronomy. America shines 3% of its total energy production up into the sky. Some states have laws against this sort of thing now and it has recently been identified as a nuisance in Britain along with noise pollution etc.  

[The Rat]

aka light pollution.

I hear ya. I've often wanted a decent telescope, but stuck here near a big city and not always able to just go out to the country has constantly put me off the expense. One of these days though, I will get a good one.

Ontario has recently designated an area a couple of hours north of Toronto as the Torrance Barrens Dark Sky Reserve, where light pollution will be severely curtailed. About time.

[monkeyhanger]

I don't want to wander too far from the reason for this website, but thanks fo rthat link. We can't put all the lights out on Earth but we can be more sensible about where we shine them. The Campaign for Rural England recognises that dark skies are part of the countryside (a song by Lindisfarne comparing country lanes to city streets refers to 'whose nights shine brighter than your days', i.e. starlight), its good to see it happening elsewhere. Recently Rekyavik (is that how to spell it) switched off the street lights to lets the residents see the sky. How about some other cities doing that.

p.s. An aeroplane theme is SR71s being used by NASA for high altitude UV observations. I also believe an F18 is used for high altitude observations. Imagine being an astronomer and getting that research project!

[The Rat]

An aeroplane theme is SR71s being used by NASA for high altitude UV observations. I also believe an F18 is used for high altitude observations. Imagine being an astronomer and getting that research project!

And they've got stuff bigger than that. Check out the Kuiper Airborne Observatory and its replacement SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy.    

[frank2056]

I hate light pollution - that picture isn't pretty at all. I was out in the Mojave desert for part of this weekend and spent the night at the Kelso sand dunes. Nice, clear black skies  with only a couple of lights about 8 miles away. The Milky Way was bright, and I could see more stars than I've ever seen... except for the southwest horizon, which had the wide, white glow of Los Angeles about 230 miles away and the narrower (but brighter) yellow glow of Las Vegas about 90 miles to the north-east.
The sad thing is that modifying street lights to reflect down the light that's wasted by illuminating the sky is not expensive. It would probably save energy and make the streets brighter yet preserve sky darkness.

Frank

[Roger the Cabin Boy]

I find it an interesting pic because it illustrates human settlement, or at least the industrialised bit.  Looks like bacterial growth, an infection...

Other than N Korea, the other suprisingly dark part is Africa.  I've flown over it a few times at night, hardly any lights at all there.  

Also flown Atlanta / Knoxville.  Blazing lights across the Atlanta suburban sprawl which stretches all the way up to the Tennessee border.  Then it's suddenly just like Africa.

Yee Har

:ar: