[HN Gopher] New Zealand's bid to become a dark sky nation
___________________________________________________________________
New Zealand's bid to become a dark sky nation
Author : throw0101a
Score : 191 points
Date : 2022-02-04 13:11 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| acd wrote:
| Its good with dark night to be able to watch the stars and our
| place in the universe. Also remember seeing stars as a kid just
| walking outside the house on the country side.
| prideout wrote:
| > artificial light is increasing globally by at least 2% every
| year
|
| Um this is scary, isn't it? I want cities across the world to
| start switching over to low pressure sodium lamps. Yellow light
| for the win!
| gtirloni wrote:
| Yellow light is horrible though. It seems to make everything
| really dark in my neighborhood. Most parts of the city are
| switching to white LED lights here and they feel much better.
| jjulius wrote:
| >It seems to make everything really dark in my neighborhood.
|
| When it comes to using lights that actually allow the night
| sky to be seen, that's kind of the point.
| zepearl wrote:
| (out of context) It depends, I personally definitely like the
| yellow variant when it's foggy or snowing. On some days I'm
| very sensitive to white light (kind of blinds me), I'm
| currently guessing that it depends on how much I slept
| throughout the week?.
|
| Here ( https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/To
| kyo_To... ) is a pic of the Tokyo Tower in Japan => I read
| that apparently they often use yellow light during winter on
| snowy/foggy days to provide a sense of "warmth", during
| summer they tend to use more often white light =>
| interesting.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| That's true. Inside my home I prefer yellow light, but on the
| streets white light does work a lot better.
|
| I know it's psychological, but white light also gives me a
| better sense of security walking at night on the street.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| There are some weird claims correlated with bluer light...
| that in public spaces they reduce crime or suicide rates.
| There's not a lot of actual data, but I've seen a lot of
| articles about it pop up... maybe it's just everyone's
| predilection towards easy fixes for complicated problems
| (like the too-rosy broken windows theory claims)
|
| https://urbanlabs.uchicago.edu/projects/crime-lights-study
| jibbit wrote:
| Blue light is preferred because it makes it difficult
| (impossible?) to Shoot Up. 'Reduce crime & suicide' is a
| euphemism.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Blue light is generally bad circadian rhythms (animals
| and humans):
|
| * https://www.darksky.org/why-is-blue-light-at-night-bad/
|
| Another study on crime and streetlights:
|
| > _A 2015 study published in the Journal of Epidemiology
| and Community Health found that streetlights don't
| prevent accidents or crime, but do cost a lot of money.
| The researchers looked at data on road traffic collisions
| and crime in 62 local authorities in England and Wales
| and found that lighting had no effect, whether
| authorities had turned them off completely, dimmed them,
| turned them off at certain hours, or substituted low-
| power LED lamps._
|
| * https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/lighting-crime-
| and-s...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| So that 2015 study looks at light versus less light, but
| the claim I've seen circulated quite often is that the
| color of the light makes a difference. It seems dubious
| and has little backing information... and I guess my
| question is why it's become such a popular theory.
| gsruff wrote:
| My experience has been exactly the opposite. My neighborhood
| went from yellow, sodium lighting to stark white LEDs a few
| years ago. The result, to my eyes, is that the contrast
| between what is lit by the street lights and surrounding dark
| areas is much higher. Perhaps what is needed is better
| diffusion onto the ground.
| novok wrote:
| Or 2000K wide spectrum LED lamps vs doing stupid
| 6000K-5000K LED lamps at night and messing with human sleep
| cycles even more :/ Or causing nausea with the narrow
| spectrum yellow sodium lamps.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the problem with 2000k lights is that human night vision
| is much more sensitive to bluer light. you can use about
| half as much light while appearing as bright by moving to
| 3500k
| khuey wrote:
| Isn't low pressure sodium vapor a dead technology?
| imoverclocked wrote:
| It's still used ... so, no?
| kunai wrote:
| High pressure sodium is very common and still available.
| Low pressure sodium is extinct. The last LPS lamp was made
| in 2018 I believe.
|
| It's a shame, because LPS was the gold standard for
| astronomy as the hyperspecific emission spectrum made it
| extremely easy to filter out for astrophotographers and
| telescope users
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| it's totally possible to make leds with similar
| properties, but it's generally but done because narrow
| spectrum lighting messes with color perception
| throw0101a wrote:
| Dark Sky approved products:
|
| * https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-
| indus...
| initplus wrote:
| Modern LED street lighting is more directional than traditional
| sodium lamps, and results in less overall light pollution.
| el_nahual wrote:
| Unfortunately it's also:
|
| 1. Much blue-er and so WAY worse for people's circadian
| rhythms 2. Much "sharper" in it's shadows, so you go from
| blindingly bright to pitch black without your eyes having a
| chance to adapt, making it unsafer, and making the shadows
| "darker" 3. Much harder to filter out for astronomers
|
| It's only advantage is really that it's a lot more energy
| efficient, but it seems like white LEDs are a net decrease to
| human welfare as opposed to yellow sodium lamps.
|
| Anecdotally, I used to live in front of a park that had
| yellow lamps and it was never an issue at night, but when
| they switched to white LEDs my entire house was illuminated
| with very blue, daylike-like light, really messing up my
| sleep.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _1. Much blue-er and so WAY worse for people 's circadian
| rhythms_
|
| There is _always_ garbage out there, regardless of product
| category. For streetlights you can get good products.
| Acuity 's Autobahn Series ATB0:
|
| > _White Light: Correlated color temperature - 4000K, or
| optional 2700K, 3000K or 5000K, all 70 CRI_
|
| * https://img.acuitybrands.com/public-
| assets/catalog/122046/at...
|
| * https://americanelectriclighting.acuitybrands.com/product
| s/d...
|
| * Via: https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-
| for-indus...
|
| > _2. Much "sharper" in it's shadows, so you go from
| blindingly bright to pitch black without your eyes having a
| chance to adapt, making it unsafer, and making the shadows
| "darker"_
|
| Lighting and crime (prevention) is debatable:
|
| * https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/lighting-crime-
| and-s...
|
| Further, glare can blind people so as to not being able to
| see in darker areas:
|
| * https://cescos.fau.edu/observatory/lightpol-
| security.html#Gl...
|
| > _3. Much harder to filter out for astronomers_
|
| IMHO we can start worrying about this after we actually
| reduce light pollution. If we're at the point that
| astronomers _can actually do useful work_ around large
| urban centres _then_ let 's start worrying about spectrum.
| As it stands they probably can't do much of anything now.
| [deleted]
| blue1 wrote:
| I also like sodium lighting, especially the LP variety (despite
| the fact that all the mystic about orange light helping sleep
| has been basically debunked), but it is still light. We should
| decrease light pollution, not simply change its color.
|
| Anyway, sodium lamps are being replaced by white LEDs.
| inciampati wrote:
| Blue light doesn't suppress melatonin production? Got a
| reference for that? This was afaik a reproducible result.
| openknot wrote:
| A Time article [0] reports on this paper [1] that reaches
| the same conclusion as the user's comment. However, it's a
| mice study, which is an important limitation because
| rodents are nocturnal, according to the Time reporter.
|
| Meanwhile, Harvard Health [2] and WebMD [3] also both
| continue to report that blue light suppresses melatonin
| production for humans.
|
| From Time: "Animal studies should always be taken with a
| grain of salt, as they often do not translate directly to
| human behavior. And there are additional caveats to this
| particular paper, says Dr. Cathy Goldstein, a sleep
| specialist at Michigan Medicine. The researchers looked
| specifically at cones in the animals' eyes, which detect
| color, instead of melanopsin, which senses light and is
| central to the issue of melatonin secretion.
|
| "They also kept light levels dim, regardless of color,
| which may not reflect the bright lights of electronics.
|
| "And finally, though mice are frequently used in sleep
| research, Goldstein notes that since the rodents are
| nocturnal, they may respond differently to light than
| humans do. Taken together, Goldstein says these conditions
| mean the study's results apply only to a very narrow set of
| circumstances and metrics. "For this to get extrapolated to
| saying 'blue light at night isn't bad for you' is a little
| bit of an extension," Goldstein says."
|
| [0] https://time.com/5752454/blue-light-sleep/
|
| [1] https://www.cell.com/current-
| biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)...
|
| [2] https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-
| light-ha...
|
| [3] https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/sleep-blue-light
| muh_gradle wrote:
| Growing up in Oregon during the 90s, I remember seeing the stars
| every night very vividly. As an adult now, the last time I got to
| see a great view of the Milky Way was on Cadillac Mountain in
| Acadia National Park. It really is something else. Light
| pollution has pretty much destroyed any of the stars everywhere I
| have lived.
| [deleted]
| endisneigh wrote:
| Other than seeing space what's the downside of artificial light
| exactly? The article doesn't really spell it out.
| christophilus wrote:
| It's a nuisance for sleeping. It appears to be bad for bugs,
| birds, nocturnal animals in general. It's certainly bad for sea
| turtles. I'm not sure what else, but man... this is one of my
| pet peeves. Almost every neighbor in my neighborhood has some
| kind of outdoor lighting that they leave on all night. I simply
| don't understand it, and it annoys me any time I'm out in the
| back yard around the firepit, looking up at the stars.
| culi wrote:
| Everything people mentioned is true. Algae blooms, insect
| disruption, confusing newly hatched baby turtles, all sorts of
| impacts on human health, etc. But one thing often left out of
| the conversation around light pollution is the impact it has on
| plants. Many plants heavily depend on the photoperiod to tell
| what time of the year it is and when it should bloom. Similarly
| to insects, the impacts it has on plants can have a lot of
| downstream effects on the entire food web
|
| Ultimately, we'll never probably be able to measure the full
| range of impacts it has though. It's a really complex issue
| Jackim wrote:
| It affects bird migration, results in algae blooms when near
| lakes, harms navigational instincts for species including sea
| turtles, and negatively impacts nocturnal species. There's a
| good summary here:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_light_pollution
| bobthepanda wrote:
| artificial lights do mess with wildlife a lot.
| https://www.darksky.org/light-pollution/wildlife/
|
| Many animals use light or the absence of it as a guide to do
| various things, so when we artificially extend the day cycle
| with night pollution it disrupts them in a myriad of ways.
| msluyter wrote:
| It disrupts insects (and thus, everything downstream of them in
| the food chain):
|
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210317141651.h...
| tejtm wrote:
| The effects of artificial light are manifold. Assigning upsides
| and downsides is left as an exercise.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=light+pollution+human
|
| Also note humans seem to have an inherent "light budget" the
| cheaper it is, the more we use.
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=historic+light+cost+v.s.+use&t=ffs...
| novok wrote:
| Also effects human sleep cycles.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Can anyone link to a photo of the sky taken from such a location
| which doesn't have HDR cranked to an 11.
| joemi wrote:
| Different cameras have different dynamic ranges (pro cameras
| can have much higher dynamic ranges than an iphone or even a
| consumer DSLR), so what dynamic range do you find acceptable?
| (Also it's pretty hard to show via a digital image what your
| naked eye would see, since the eye has a high dynamic range.)
| mgraczyk wrote:
| HDR isn't just about the range of the camera. It's about the
| range compression used to go from the original light
| intensity to the 8-bit JPEG rendered in your browser. The
| image in the article has very aggressive, nonphysical tone
| mapping. If they didn't, the bottom of the scene would be
| black.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_mapping
| [deleted]
| dheera wrote:
| I do a lot of astrophotography in California mostly --
| https://instagram.com/dheeranet/
|
| That said, cameras are inherently much more sensitive to the
| naked eye, and if you expose for even a few seconds you'll get
| an image that is far more than your eye can see, let alone
| hours which are normal for astrophotography.
|
| To add to that, your monitor only has about 8 bits of dynamic
| range, which is far less than your _eye_ has, so it 's not
| really possible to represent an image on a monitor exactly like
| it looks to the eye. You'll end up with a lot of black pixels
| or a lot of white pixels.
|
| It's not really possible to describe what the sky looks like to
| the eye using photographs. If you're US-based, I'd really
| recommend a trip to a dark sky national park such as Death
| Valley, Lassen, or even Pinnacles.
| novok wrote:
| Human eyes have about 25 stops of computational dynamic range
| (about 7 stop without the stuff the brain does), cameras only
| win because they can do crazy long exposures and are not
| continuous video cameras like eyes are.
|
| And camera's photos are at most 14 stops. I look forward to a
| world one day where digital cameras can do the full 25 stops
| without all the computational tricks the human brain does,
| it's going to be cool! Also looking forward to 10 and 12 bit
| displays to start becoming standard with the HDR push in
| consumer video. Maybe one day we will get a 25 stop display
| too!
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Human eyes have about 25 stops of computational dynamic
| range (about 7 stop without the stuff the brain does),
| cameras only win because they can do crazy long exposures
| and are not continuous video cameras like eyes are._
|
| That may be true, but your eyes have an aperture of 'only'
| 7mm (when you're young). That's not a lot of area for
| photons to get into.
|
| Get a pair of cheap 7x35mm (or 7x50mm) binoculars and now
| the aperture is 5-7 times larger (and the area is more, per
| pr^2).
| kurthr wrote:
| I agree with you, but it's important to note that the 8 bits
| of dynamic range are not in constant luminance steps. The
| gamma of most monitors is about 2 (1.8-2.2) or square law.
| This is done to roughly match your eye's sensitivity. So
| those bits have a range of about 64,000,000:1 in brightness.
| What your monitor can do?? Well, that depends a lot on your
| monitor and the background illumination of the room.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| As much as I would love for NZ to become a dark sky nation, this
| BBC article is the first I have heard of it.
|
| Meanwhile our cities are all replacing sodium street lamps with
| vastly overpowered LEDs.
| YaBomm wrote:
| manicdee wrote:
| In Australia we have a Dark Sky park at the Warrumbungles where
| the Siding Springs Observatory lives. IIRC we also have some of
| the radio-quietest parts of the Earth where the SKA is being
| developed.
|
| I love the idea of making the whole country a Dark Sky park.
| lenova wrote:
| Agreed! I had the joy of visiting the Aoraki dark sky reserve
| in New Zealand a few years back. The night sky was surreal: I
| have never seen the the galaxy so clear and bright before.
|
| Visiting a Dark Sky park was one of the highlights of my life,
| and I'm jealous of New Zealand expanding the concept.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| I should probably take a vacation there at some point, once
| the pandemic ends. I miss traveling. I spent nearly two
| months outside of the US in 2019 (Japan and Germany) and it
| was awesome.
| yumraj wrote:
| What are they going to do about that 10s of thousands of Starlink
| satellites that will start interfering with observations?
| starik36 wrote:
| The newer Starlink satellites have a sun shield. That should,
| in theory, make them impervious to observations.
| tejtm wrote:
| Where "impervious" means you can't see through the the sun
| shield either.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Very good initiative and I think that Australia won't have any
| problems with dark skies, considering how sparsely populated most
| of the continent is. Have a look at these dark skies maps:
|
| https://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html
|
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info
|
| https://www.cleardarksky.com/maps/lp/large_light_pollution_m...
| barbazoo wrote:
| > New Zealand's bid to become bid to become a dark sky nation
|
| Love it. Title needs fixing needs fixing though.
| dang wrote:
| Whoops! Fixed. Thanks!
| subsubzero wrote:
| yeah should be: New Zealand's bid to become a dark sky nation
| sparker72678 wrote:
| I wish them all the best. There's nothing like a clear dark sky.
|
| Meanwhile, my neighbors are all doing their best to recreate
| daylight brightness all through the night with flood lights in
| their driveways, begging for ever brighter street lights, etc.
|
| I feel like more than half the population would truly end
| nighttime if given the opportunity.
| gs17 wrote:
| >begging for ever brighter street lights
|
| And near me that seemed to mean they also need to be cool white
| LEDs (which, being more efficient than what they replaced, will
| be run brighter) tilted slightly upward so they shine both into
| the sky and second story bedrooms.
| dashundchen wrote:
| Agreed. I've seen plenty of street lights that have diffuse,
| warm/yellow LEDs and a good downward pattern.
|
| But my city keeps insisting on installing the blinding cool
| LEDs that cast everywhere! I don't get who thinks these look
| good, except that some people associate the cool temperature
| = modern.
|
| Then again, when I walk around at night, I see a lot of
| houses and apartments lit up with wildly different bulb
| temperatures, or cool color temperatures in their living
| rooms. It would drive me crazy but it's possible some people
| don't notice these things.
| kelnos wrote:
| I moved into my current home about 2 years ago, and it's
| been a slow process to replace cooler lighting with warmer
| lighting. Part of it is that it isn't a _huge_ priority for
| me, other part is that it feels bad to take out and toss
| perfectly working bulbs just because they 're the wrong
| temperature.
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| We do this in our house. We have intentionally done this
| based on the use of the room. Laundry
| room/kitchen/bathroom, light that sucker up. Living room or
| bedroom, not so much.
| dashundchen wrote:
| Yeah temperature by room makes sense to me. Or even the
| adjustable temperature bulbs to fit mood/time of day.
|
| I'm referring to when I'll see a dim warm yellow bulb in
| a lamp, with the most sterile cool bulb in a ceiling
| fixture, all in the same room.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I use yellows in lamps and blues in the ceiling. The
| ceiling lights are turned on only when I need to really
| see what's going on (cleaning, can't find something,
| etc)... most of the time I'm using the lamps.
| stordoff wrote:
| > cool color temperatures in their living rooms. It would
| drive me crazy but it's possible some people don't notice
| these things
|
| That's a deliberate choice for me. I have colour
| temperature adjustable lighting, and prefer the cooler
| temperatures (~6500k), particularly when reading.
| throw0101a wrote:
| There are Dark Sky approved products that aim down, reduce
| glare, and have the proper (<3500K) colour temperature:
|
| * https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-
| indus...
| oblio wrote:
| Interesting, I'm curious if it's just that brand (
| https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-
| indus... )or other designs like it.
|
| My street has a very similar design, I wonder if it's
| compatible with what you're saying, maybe just not certified.
| throw0101a wrote:
| The terminology in question is "high/full cutoff":
|
| * https://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightinganswers/li
| ght...
|
| * https://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightinganswers/li
| ght...
|
| There are standards (RP-33-99, RP-2) from folks like:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminating_Engineering_So
| cie...
|
| * https://energycodeace.com/site/custom/public/reference-
| ace-2...
|
| * https://www.shine.lighting/threads/122/
|
| * https://www.denvergov.org/files/assets/public/doti/docume
| nts...
|
| IES TM15 11:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVPbuq4g5W4
|
| * http://www.escolighting.com/PDFfiles/BUG_rating.pdf
|
| Generally you don't light to illuminate more that 60@ from
| the nadir of the lamp:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadir
| balaji1 wrote:
| This article needs to be more readable. Or at least easier to
| skim once.
|
| But this is a great initiative. Hope NZ makes progress.
| LocalH wrote:
| The title has "bid to become" duplicated.
| illys wrote:
| I remember the night sky of the 80's in the property of my grand-
| parents, South of France during the summer holidays: in my early
| years we had a clear view of the Milky Way... But every year, a
| larger share of the night sky was turning orange: the near-by
| city was extending.
|
| Nowadays there are lamp posts on their land and no remaining
| starts: when they passed away, the city was in the end of their
| road, becoming a street, and a dozen houses was built on my
| childhood fields.
|
| Time has passed, and I don't know where I can show the Milky Way
| to my children.
| drekipus wrote:
| You can, just go for a camp once in a while
| danlugo92 wrote:
| People say this but I've been in like interstates and such
| and never seen the milky way??
| eindiran wrote:
| Visit the desert, well off any major highway and it will be
| very low light pollution. The Southwest has a lot of land
| like this.
| culi wrote:
| Are you making sure to pay attention to the moon cycle?
| It's important to go at a new moon and definitely not
| during a full moon
| iso1631 wrote:
| 1) Go camp
|
| 2) Ensure clear skies
|
| 3) Ensure new moon
|
| 4) Ensure camp ground is dark
|
| 5) Ensure it's warm enough that everyone is happy enough
| to stay out
|
| 6) Ensure it gets dark early enough
|
| It's doable, you have to specifically aim for it though
| gpas wrote:
| 7) leave the phone in the car/tent/pocket
|
| Even the dimmest display is far brighter than what you
| want to see.
| tejtm wrote:
| Eyes have to dark adapt, No light, seriously; NO WHITE
| LIGHT. Takes about 45 minutes to be fully adapted one
| little flash and you start over.
|
| This is why there are pages out there on astronomy/star
| party etiquette.
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=+star+party+etiquette&t=ffsb&ia=w
| e...
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Have to get well off the interstate.
|
| I thought I would see some good stars going across Nevada
| but despite a hundred miles between towns there was always
| a brightly lit truck stop not far off. And like my sibling
| comments - nothing kills your night vision like oncoming
| headlights.
|
| I was pulled over on a rural utah highway in the middle of
| the night once, leaning back on the hood of my car letting
| my eyes adjust, and when I finally started to see the
| fainter stars, I witnessed what I took to be something
| angelic, blinding white light flying right above me.
|
| I was stunned for a moment but once the car passed from
| behind me I put it together that their brights bounced off
| a bat flying low above me.
| iso1631 wrote:
| I had a couple of weeks in Cyprus a few years back,
| * Bortle Class 3-4 * Artifiical brightness 81.7 mcd/m2
|
| according to https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/
|
| It was lovely and clear every night, I could not only see the
| ISS pass, I saw something dimmer following it at the same
| speed - I later found out it was a Dragon cargo capsule
|
| Still very difficult to pick out anything milkyway ish.
|
| I live in * Bortle Class 4 * Artifiical
| brightness 375 mcd/m2
|
| Can currently pick out the usual - Cassiopea, Orion, Ursa
| Major, etc, not the milky way. It's usually overcast.
|
| However for picking out a decent number of stars - I was
| pleasantly surprised one evening on Manly Beach in Sydney
| (1350 mcd/m2) to be able to see a fair amount of (unfamiliar)
| stars. I don't go south of the equator much, and when I do it
| tends to be for work and I'm in a city - I had some time in
| Sydney though, and it was clear.
| sen wrote:
| I live in a rural Australian city and can regularly see the
| Milky Way from my back yard on clear cold nights. We do get
| light pollution from the city around me if there's any type
| of moisture or even the tiniest amount of cloud but that
| just makes the Milky Way itself blend in and the stars
| themselves are still incredible.
|
| I moved here from a big city so I never get sick of it,
| regularly just lying on my back on the grass and staring
| for a bit while taking the bins out at night.
|
| Despite being a big fan of the idea of Starlink etc, I do
| (literally) see the concerns about their sky pollution
| though. It's very jarring how many more satellites you see
| moving around the sky in the last few nights and they're
| bright enough to cause you to require a few minutes
| adjustment afterwards until you can see the dimmer stars in
| the areas they've passed. Eg they basically "wash out"
| anywhere they've been for a while.
| iso1210 wrote:
| It's that adjusting that's the problem in the UK - it's
| winter that the nights are dark enough at a reasonable
| time, which means sitting outside in the dark with no
| lights for an hour at near freezing temperatures.
| adamrezich wrote:
| if you ever find yourself in the area, Mt. Rushmore has free
| parking at night and despite the monument itself being lit,
| there's pretty much no other lights for quite a ways, such that
| on a clear night the Milky Way is visible all around it, it's
| pretty stunning.
| tejtm wrote:
| At the Oregon Star Party! After you eye are dark adapted (an
| hour) see your shadow on the ground from the light of the Milky
| Way.
|
| https://oregonstarparty.org/
|
| https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/44.3092/-120.2062&laye...
|
| Perhaps more usefully, contact your local Astronomy clubs.
|
| https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-clubs-organizations/
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Astronomy+club+France&t=ffsb&ia=we...
| j_walter wrote:
| Central Oregon has some amazing night skies. Went to Hancock
| Field Station as a kid for astronomy camp and it was
| incredible.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| When I read this, I think that no matter how much New Zealand
| eliminates their light pollution, there may be satellites and
| other things in space that impact their views of the sky.
|
| It has me wondering, how is space governed and how do we want it
| to be governed?
| cfcosta wrote:
| With your naked eye, you won't be able to see them, except on
| deploy, which most of the pictures you see around are. The
| satellites themselves are getting better at "being dark" and
| the image processing algorithms are getting better at removing
| them, so I don't think it will be much of a problem, specially
| for deep space astronomy that is nearing a revolution with more
| launches more cheaply.
|
| Astrophotography might be a different story, but I haven't seen
| much uproar after the dark starlink satellites got deployed,
| but maybe I didn't look hard enough. Either way, it is still a
| smaller problem than ground light pollution, so maybe fixing
| that can give us more slack to deploy more stuff.
| HMH wrote:
| You can very much see deployed satellites with your naked
| eye. The ISS can even get about as bright as Venus [1]. Other
| satellites aren't as bright but still visible.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Ah, I'm glad it doesn't seem to be as big of a problem as I
| had been reading before.
|
| Also still curious about the general "how do we regulate a
| global space with national governments" problem.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| Interesting they use the Church of the Good Shepherd as the title
| photo for this. You'll find Mt. John observatory nearby, and the
| local region is already designated a dark sky area.
|
| The interesting thing however, is the local township of Tekapo is
| booming in population due to... well, boomers. Tekapo is a nice
| place to settle down, plenty of retiries from Christchurch have
| built homes there and the size of the town has grown massively
| since the first time I visited it 20 something years ago.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't think the dark sky reserve will get in the
| way of further expansion. Mandated blackout curtains and low
| light street lamps can only go so far to combat the ever
| increasing light pollution in the basin.
|
| Unfortunately pt2 for Mt John observatory, it's survival has been
| in trouble before as the latitude is serviced by better
| telescopes in Chile. Therefore it's lacking investment drive for
| better instruments / expansion etc.
| taffronaut wrote:
| La Palma in the Canary Islands passed a law in 1988 "to protect
| the quality of the night sky for the purpose of astrophysical
| observation" [1]. This seemed primarily for the benefit of large
| international optical observatories on the island. Not sure how
| they're that's faring after the recent volcanic eruption, but the
| law seemed quite strictly enforced when I visited a few years ago
| - streetlightling intensity was low and there were very few (if
| any) floodlit buildings.
|
| [1] https://www.starsislandlapalma.es/en/the-island/the-sky-
| star...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Tucson Arizona is well known for having a strong night sky
| protection law. It sure makes the street lights in that city
| very different.
| lizknope wrote:
| Kitt Peak Observatory is 50 miles west. When I went on the
| tour they said that they get more light pollution from
| Phoenix 140 miles north than from Tucson. The streetlights in
| Tucson have covers that direct the light downward which also
| saves energy because you are not wasting the light going up
| into the sky where it doesn't help any people.
| piptastic wrote:
| _Kyba and colleagues found that streetlights accounted for
| just 13 percent of the city's total light visible after
| midnight. That number would jump to 18 percent if the city
| did not dim the lights. This means most of the light is
| coming from other types of artificial lighting._
|
| https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148259/experimentin.
| ..
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Yes. External house lighting, especially in higher-than-
| average-crime Arizona, is probably going to keep the
| numbers up. Also headlights from cars, though there
| shouldn't be much of that past midnight.
| labster wrote:
| Do external lights prevent or reduce crime? If so, by how
| much?
| treeman79 wrote:
| Ever walk around in a bad area at night with few lights?
|
| My experience. Was waking in what I thought was a decent
| area. As soon as sun dropped sketchy looking character
| were everywhere. Just standing around doing nothing. I
| assume selling drugs. When I got back to an area with
| better lighting they were all gone.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Why make it sound like cutting down light pollution by a
| whopping 15% is somehow not significant. If anything, this
| article explains that there's an obvious and simple way to
| reduce light pollution by quite a bit.
|
| It doesn't ever require passing any legislation for
| heaven's sake, it's just a Thursday afternoon municipal
| planning decision with roll-out spread over a four year
| period or something to keep costs trivially manageable.
| piptastic wrote:
| Here's why from later down: _"Light-pollution activists
| and governments have been very focused on street
| lighting, and that makes sense because it's probably the
| biggest single source and the government has direct
| control over it," Kyba said. "But my worry is that most
| of the growth in light is coming from other applications.
| If we want to reduce the environmental impact of outdoor
| lighting, it's not good enough to change to LED
| streetlights and then stop. We need to think critically
| about all the different types of light sources there
| are."_
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Right, but that's still a weird way to focus on it. Of
| course it's not enough, but it's a _fantastic_ easy step
| in a multi-step solution.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Who said it's not significant?
|
| They're just saying it might not be significant enough to
| drastically affect the type of lights used, as GP comment
| implied.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| As far as I can tell, Tucson's sky protection regulations
| aren't limited to stopping streetlights. _" With major
| astronomical observatories within close range, city leaders
| enacted an outdoor lighting ordinance in 2012 that requires
| fully shielded lighting and sets limits on the total light
| produced at night, especially in natural areas and areas
| close to astronomy sites."_
|
| Edit: The gp does mention street lights in the second
| sentence but that doesn't imply that's all that's done. And
| hey, no, that's not all the Tucson does.
|
| https://www.darksky.org/nights-over-tucson/
| ourmandave wrote:
| So I'm officially coining the phrase "Astronomy Economy".
|
| Although I've no idea how to make mad profits doing so. Maybe
| NFTs, something, something.
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