I was surprised to read that light pollution can have effects on our health and well-being.
Being able to see the sky at night, to follow the movements of the planets, to see meteor showers, to see the Clouds of Magellan and the Milky Way, is important to me. Perhaps because I have lived in remote locations, perhaps because I grew up in an unpolluted area, perhaps because I like to see the world the way ancient civilization saw it.
What is it with you.? How does viewing the night sky affect you? How important is it for us to avoid masking this experience with light pollution? Is a computer view any sort of substitute?
I would be interested whether knowing and seeing our place in the universe is important to you?
More links
The carbon footprint of lighting is estimated at 0.5Kg of CO2 per KWh
I grew up a few miles outside of a small town so light pollution wasn’t a big problem. We didn’t have truly dark skies I suppose, but many would consider them dark these days. Now I live in a larger city, for Iowa, and there are lots of lights. I can still see stars and planets, but we drive 30 minutes or so when we try to see the northern lights or a meteor shower.
I like to use Stellarium on my computers. It’s nice to put a name to a planet or constellation I’ve just seen when out for a walk. I’m impressed with the program.
It is nice because
you are doing what the ancients did
observing
I had a project once
tracking the paths of Mars and Saturn against the constellations
I wanted to see what it was like for the ancient astronomers
I observed Mars movements from night to night
saw the backtracking and loops
It must have been a big step to relate that to the maths of epicycles and deferents.
I admire that, even though later hindsight changed that view, it is still a valid description, just not the simplest.
I lived and worked at a desert outpost. The night sky is magnificent, even if the environment is challenging. No computer could replicate the feeling… but they are a great aid to finding and identifying sky objects.
I grew up in a town, so street lights were the normal, all night. But then moved into the country and had no lighting in our area of the village, although i did ask if we could have one at the corner where visability was poor due to buildings at tight.
Our village then decided that a cutoff of all lights at 1am, the next village chose midnight.
Now in summer we have all night lighting because of tourists and from the 1 october until easter no lights from midnight to 6 am.
Ours is not due to light polution but a cost saving exercise. It makes a big difference in the visability of the night sky also the electricity cost savings.
One thing I don’t get - is way back when - like 40 something years ago - they used to turn off all the street lights around midnight or 1 am - and not turn them on again until like 4 or 5 am or something…
Why do we need them on overnight? - there’s hardly any traffic…
And turning them off would save money - and even better - greenhouse gas emissions…
I also DETEST like when going through the city at night - you can see all the advertising neon lights on all night - and sometimes whole buildings with all the internal lights still switched on! They should be penalised… The building I work in (occasionally) only has the office lights on “on demand” (they come on with movement detection)…
Living in a large populated area and by a large city (Washington, DC.), I can only see a few stars and of course the moon at night. I actually get excited around December when I can see Orion and sometimes the Big Dipper (or the plough (UK, Ireland).
I am interested. Do you think it affects you ? There may be psychological effects we are not generally aware of.
Thousands of generations of humans have lived with the stars. We are the first generation to miss out.
There was a famous CSIRO breeding experiment with chooks ( chickens to you).
They kept them in a 24 hour light environment and selected them to shorten the interval between egg lays. They got it down to about an egg every 18 hours.
Broke down the diurnal rhythm of laying.
Then they transferred them back to a normal day/night lighting regime. They continued to lay every 18 hours, independently of the day/night rhythm. They were quite different from normal chooks, not only in egg laying but in behaviour.
Why mention that? Well we are breaking down our diurnal rhythm with night lighting.
Quite apart from spoiling our vision of the universe, we are likely to also suffer biological effects.
OK, you count as one who misses it… like me before we retired to a regional area.
We have grabbed some of it back by moving, but light pollution is creeping into this area too. It is not as dark asbit was 24 years ago when we first arrived here.
Yes, I remember. It was a less wasteful world then.
whole buildings with all the internal lights still switched on
In Sydney there are skyscraper office blocks , with all floors lighted all night, and no-one there. The AC is probably also running.
Even here in Nowra, the Council built an Entertainment Centre. It might be used once a month. They leave the lights on in and around it every night.
I think security is one reason. But is it worth it? We lived for centuries without it.
Switching off lights makes a lot of sense, and not just economic sense.
You grew up without a night sky and then did a sky-change. Tell me how did the change affect you? I am interested in the psychology and biology of it.
No, I don’t believe so. Like the chickens, I think the day/night cycle is way more important. Seeing the stars and the Milky Way at night is wonderful. Having an effect on my life, I serious doubt.
At first it was a surprise and i thought there was a power out or problem, then i realised what and why. Now makes little difference to me as its very rare i am out at night.
Early mornings are my thing and sometimes i get up before the lights come on.
We have talked about movement detectors to provide light on request by moving but that i dislike as just as my eyes are regulated to the dark the lights come on
We reciently replaced the bridge onto our island so the main connection came via another bridge and path where no electricity exists. We fitted solar lights and that was great over winter. No costs but they have now been removed and relocated, but the area is now too dark on a night and several of our older residents will not go out that way
Thank you. At least someone recognizes the problem.
The solution is not to turn the lights off, it is to find how to manage light usage. We are very wasteful.
The previous “administration” of the Australian Government, while slashing CSIRO budgets (at the height of a pandemic) - and tried to dictate international the big players in IT : Google, Microsoft, Apple, how to implement their algorithms - and announced an Australian Space Exploration “body” (with no funding, or goals - kinda like Trump’s “Space Force”) : and this great bunch of lads setup “A.R.S.E” (Australian Research and Space Exploration) as a joke - and it went off - I bought two of these (wearing one right now) :
(that’s not me - but the logo font is a nod to NASA)
I’m pretty much bald - and don’t go outside without a hat… hmmm - mostly wear one indoors too
