The Illuminati Project Pushes For Dark Skies In 2009 315
An anonymous reader writes "2009 is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's observations of Venus, Saturn and Jupiter published in Sidereus Nuncius ('Starry Messenger'). To improve scientific literacy, the NOAO and NASA are promoting dark-sky initiatives in 2009 to draw attention to the problem of light pollution which obscures nearly all night sky colors and objects except for the moon and a few bright stars and planets. Project Illuminati is a Flickr project by James Cann to showcase the beauty of light pollution to raise awareness and educate fellow Earthmates to lower energy consumption and become more curious about our place in the universe."
Protecting the sky is possible (Score:5, Interesting)
Dark Sky Parks (Score:5, Interesting)
In Galloway in Scotland, the local tourist board is trying to set up a dark sky park. The area that they're planning to open it is apparently the darkest place in Europe.
There are already two in the US, in Utah (http://www.nps.gov/nabr/parknews/news040507.htm) and Northern Pennsylvania (http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/cherrysprings.aspx). This BLDGBLOG article mentions suggests World Heritage sites for experiencing darkness, set up to protect dark areas: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/dark-sky-park.html [blogspot.com]
I recently visited Poland (Krakow) and there the level of street lighting was a lot lower, resulting in reduced light pollution. Streets were mostly lit with light reflected from buildings. It's surprising to be able to see the night sky from the middle of a city of 1 million. It's not comparable to countryside darkness by any means, but it really changes the character of a city.
Red lights (Score:5, Interesting)
Not just about turning off the lights (Score:2, Interesting)
Go where it's dark (Score:4, Interesting)
There are plenty of areas around which are void of lighting. Often times lights are necessary for safety and although you may be able to encourage people to use mirrors and what not to maximize the amount of light hitting the ground rather than going up into the sky, you're not going to have much luck getting populated areas to turn down the lights much. Lighting helps avoid crime.
You can't have a dark city.
The government should just make sure they have large enough plots of land that keep the cities far away so people can go visit and view the dark sky.
Re:I am confused... (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a lot of things people can do to stop light pollution without increasing risks.
The easiest example I remember is streetlights that use cones to direct the light at the ground instead of letting it escape every direction including up into the sky. The amount of light we have on the ground remains the same and light pollution is noticeably reduced by this simple example.
Thanks for making me waste a mod point by replying to your knee-jerk response.
- I'm also confused by their campaign choice, let's stop light pollution cause it's so.. beautiful!
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Simple Example (Score:5, Interesting)
In order for the light to remain the same, you'd probably have to reduce the power to the lamp.
Re:Go where it's dark (Score:4, Interesting)
yes, but you can be smarter about it.
My street could loose 1/3 the street lights and it wouldn't impact crime.
Lights with caps, lower light that shine across a street instead of down, and so on.
Re:sprawl (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't get it. Why do people move out to the country if they don't want it to be like the country?
Because they like the city even less. It's not safe for their spoiled miniconsumers and there is no room there to build their new starter-castle and pico-estate. They want to live the soap-opera lifestyle and do so by incurring deep debt. Just wait a few years and I have a feeling that a lot of those estates will be dark or at least most of the lights busted and unrepaired.
Re:It's really amazing how much of a difference (Score:3, Interesting)
I know exactly what you mean. In my younger days my family lived in rural Missouri where they didn't have any street lights (back country roads are like that.....or used to be at any rate). I could go outside on any given night and see the Milky Way. I've since moved central Ohio and now I realize what a problem street lamps are for stargazing. It is a real shame, and I can't help but think about the number of people who have grown up in the city and never experienced a true night sky.
I'm just pitching in the dark here (insert rimshot :-P), but I think the major argument for all the street lights in most places is presumably safety. I know that in the city that I live in there are streets I actively avoid at night (as well as during the day come to think of it) because of the part of town they're in and their lack of street lamps. I would love to see more cities using anti-light pollutions lamps, as this would really be the best of both worlds.
Cost of energy (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:sprawl (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't understand this myself. It should be dark at night.
I also think it is false security. If the lights are on, they can see you. If the lights are off (and your eyes dark adopted) you can see them.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Terrible Photos (Score:3, Interesting)
Only the first [flickr.com] photo of the Group [flickr.com] is any good at "showing" light pollution. The rest are terrible.
Re:A mugger speaks... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:creators: nothing but blue skies from now on (Score:3, Interesting)
Archimedes Plutonium has found a new stomping ground I think. Update on his shares portfolio at 11.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's really amazing how much of a difference (Score:3, Interesting)
yea, i still remember the first time i went stargazing somewhere with practically no light pollution. i was staying at a rural Buddhist temple/monastery in Taiwan for a Buddhist summer camp. Taiwan has a somewhat tropical climate, and i remember it being a warm summer night with a very soothing breeze. the group of us just laid on the roof of the monastery for hours staring up at the star-filled sky. it was absolutely breathtaking.
being able to see the night sky like that really is one of those simple pleasures that i wish more people could experience. i mean, it doesn't cost any money really. all you have to do is get away from the light pollution found in most major cities. but i guess that's becoming harder and harder to do these days.
i remember when i was growing up and my parents and i were still living with my grandma in Taiwan, my dad had a skylight installed in our room directly above the bed so that we could look at the stars at night. back then our home town was still transitioning from a farming community to a medium-sized urban population center. so there was some light pollution, but you could still see the stars at night. and whenever my cousins spent the weekend with us, we'd run down to the local 7-11 and pick up a ton of snacks (Taiwan has a great selection of junk food =P) and just hang out under the "moonroof"--it was funner than watching TV (well, in Taiwan everything on cable after 10 PM is basically porn) or playing video games.
sadly, the last time i went back to Taiwan (~4 years ago) the town had become completely (over)industrialized. i mean, there were already a few factories going up in the area when we were still living there in the early 90's, but by the time i went back the whole place had become a full-blown industrial/commercial district. the air was smoggy; the roads were dirty & littered; the creeks & irrigation channels that once ran by the fields were all either dried up or disgustingly polluted; and you could no longer see the stars at night.
but i guess that's the cost of economic growth...
Re:Red lights (Score:4, Interesting)
Red lights are used by people with telescopes. This page [stlplaces.com] has a good bit of detail on the biology behind night vision and different colors. The basic summary? If you want fast dark adaptation, use blue-green. If you want to see detail and can afford to lose peripheral vision, use very low level deep red. For general walking-around light. blue-green with enough red to get rid of the night blind spot (or dim white). If you need to see color, dim white.
Re:Not just about turning off the lights (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I am confused... (Score:3, Interesting)
Or install Google earth.
Re:I am confused... (Score:4, Interesting)
drive for a couple hours
You're lucky if you live somewhere where darkness is only a car drive away.
The islands that constitute my home country are pretty thoroughly populated, so there's no direction in which a couple hours' drive would get you to a dark spot; I'd have to drive a good distance into the neighbouring country. Not something I'd do for casual stargazing to awe and inspire the kids!
Re:I am confused... (Score:3, Interesting)
IIRC an astronomer at Lick Observatory told me once that the High Pressure Sodium lamps caused worse problems than the Mercury Vapor lamps, but the cities were switching over (back in the '60s) to get more lumens per watt of electricity. Those fucking tweakers are amazing aren't they? Here I think they carry nail-pullers.
Re:I am confused... (Score:4, Interesting)
If they travelled about 30 miles they would have been able to see a thousand or so and just made out the milky way. If they travelled 100 miles they would have seen real dark skies - but they had obviously done neither.
Re:Dark Sky Parks (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the phenomena I observed while enjoying the Northridge Earthquake of '94 was a starry sky over Los Angeles. It'd be nice if the engineers could sell new lights to our cities that would allow that again.
Re:I am confused... (Score:2, Interesting)
Targeted blue lights may correlate with lowered suicide rates:
http://www.physorg.com/news148153021.html [physorg.com]
However, streetlights in general have not been proven to prevent any crime:
http://www.delscope.demon.co.uk/information/lightpollution.htm#security [demon.co.uk]
http://amper.ped.muni.cz/light/crime/lp040_1h.html [ped.muni.cz]