[Vision2020] A "light" hearted view ...

[Jasper Nance]

I feel that as an astrophotographer I should respond to this post in some 
way.

Light pollution from the moon is really limited to a few days out of the 
month, and it doesn't even last the entire night. When watching aurorae you 
can always just wait for the moon to set, or view it before the moon rises. 
Yard lights don't really work that way... Also, yard lights come in at 
wonderfully horrible angles whereas the moon comes in from straight up ( and 
slightly southward! which is anti-aurora direction). Agreed that headlights 
suck, but they still don't shine upward. (Like the billboard across the 
street from pets are people too does, obscuring my view of most things in 
the night sky with its many hundred watt halogen beams that probably set 
birds flying overhead aflame)

Other notable things in the post would be things like light reflects not 
refracts off of particulants, and that said particulants are usually water 
vapor and very thin dust which doesn't affect the clarity of sky at all (not 
like its a big cloud of dirt or smoke)

Also the fact that we could light up celestial objects in any way is quite 
absurd due to the distances involved considering the speed of light....

And I won't get into the moon and sun being on a cycle that animals, plants, 
and fungi have envolved with and need to function correctly and constant 
light sources screw with. (Yes even people!)

We certainly can't kill all light pollution, but we can at least be 
considerate of others (animals, plants, fungi as well as people) and keep it 
within tolerable levels. Want to see something? Grab a flashlight, they work 
much better than any yard light will.

If you need light to do something, then use it and do it and turn it off. 
You don't need to light up anything while you're asleep, and noone is 
looking. Would you leave your sink on just because you wanted to be sure 
that your dishes were ALWAYS clean? Of course not.


             Ms. Jasper Nance

--------
Jasper Nance
Creative Photographer at your service!
http://nebar.gotdns.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Harkins" <jeffh at moscow.com>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2005 2:41 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] A "light" hearted view ...


>@>----
>
> I am fascinated by the "light" perspectives.  An accountant by avocation, 
> I always want to shine the light into the dark spaces so folks can see 
> what's going on.  And I think a lot of folks have had a lot of fun with 
> this topic.
>
> The light question seems to me to be about personal priorities and good 
> science.  Here is an interesting perspective posted to me because they did 
> not want to experience the "flaming" that might accrue as a result of 
> their post - and I am not sure that it is a sincere post ... anyway ...
>
> The gist of their post was that the fellow and his wife really enjoyed 
> nightly touring around the ridge tops and higher elevations in Latah 
> County.  They enjoy very much the view of the lower elevations and in 
> particular the "sparkling lights" dancing on the snow and frozen ground 
> during the winter season.  They are concerned that if all the lights are 
> hooded or domed to prevent light rays from the light source, there will no 
> longer be twinkly and sparkly lights.  Why should the "dark sky" folks be 
> allowed to take away their enjoyment of the twinkly and sparkly 
> experience?
>
> It is really all about priorities, isn't it.  From the sublime to the 
> ridiculous - the greatest light polluter is the moon - reflecting all that 
> sunlight off the moon at night - one cannot hope to see the subtle 
> constellations or the auroras when the moon is out.  Should we blow it up?
>
> And then there are all those planes, taking off and landing with their 
> landing lights on.  And Jet service has just returned to Lewiston - (that 
> is actually closer to Moscow than the easternmost portions of Latah 
> County.  Those landing lights are extraordinarily bright and are beamed 
> horizontally creating major difficulties for light pollution.  And of 
> course - on a lightly overcast Palouse evening, the light reflecting off 
> of the Lewiston - Clarkston valley destroys any hope of seeing the 
> constellations and auroras.  On those same evenings, light reflecting on 
> the clouds from the lights of Pullman are a problem.  Even from the North 
> of Moscow Mountain, the lights from Potlatch can be seen reflecting off 
> that lightly overcast sky.  We will have to annex all the surrounding 
> counties to stop the light pollution problem.
>
> And what about the cars and trucks traveling the Palouse highways?  Those 
> lights are more or less horizontal and are reflecting all over the place.
>
> And this thread is exactly how bad public policy gets started - a belief 
> that light is what is blocking one's view of the universe.  From my high 
> school physics class, I recall that in fact light is not visible to the 
> human eye.  What we actually "see" is light refracting off objects, 
> thereby making the object visible.  And therein lies the problem.  The 
> reason we see the lights of Lewiston, Clarkston, planes landing, and so 
> forth is because there are particulates in the air.  And those 
> particulates are indeed why light is visible.
>
> In fact, if we turned off every light for a 100 mile radius, we would 
> still not be able to see the universe in all its splendor because turning 
> off the lights would do nothing to remove the particulate from the 
> atmosphere (dust, smoke and other particulate).  If you want to be able to 
> have a fine grained view of the universe, you must remove all the 
> particulate from the air.  That is why the night sky is so spectacular 
> after a good rain (even in Moscow)!.  And when the air has been cleared of 
> particulate (all the way to the edge of the atmosphere),  even with the 
> lights all turned on, you can see all the stars, planets and other 
> objects.  In fact, pointing all lights vertically would probably actually 
> improve your view of the heavens because there would be additional light 
> refracting off space based objects (much like a flashlight helps you see 
> objects in the dark).
>
> The problem really isn't about light pollution at all.  The problems 
> arises because of particulate in the air.  Making everyone use 60 watt 
> bulbs would do nothing to fix the "dark sky" problem.  It would just 
> contribute to having everyone live in the dark ;-)
>
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