science, astronomy, environment, life in general, light pollution, earth
By nrnotrare
@nrnotrare (631)
United States
March 10, 2007 3:18pm CST
Hello everyone.....
I found this image and I thought some of you folks would enjoy seeing it. It really shows you just how much extra lighting we are polluting the sky with every night. It is making it very difficult for both amateur and professional astronomers to see our night sky. Can you spot your city?I live in Southeast Nebraska and on average clear night I can spot the Andromeda Galaxy without any optical aid except my regular glasses. On really clear nights I can literally see many millions of stars. The Milky Way is sometimes bright enough to cast faint shadows.
I am not in the darkest area on earth, can you imagine how magnificent the night sky looks from a really dark place?
2 people like this
4 responses
@stvasile (7306)
• Romania
10 Mar 07
My home is in a small Romanian village where the light pollution is not that big.
At night the sky is wonderful. The Milky Way is bright and clear across the sky. Every year I get up at 4 am to see the meteor showers from july-august...It's wonderful show.
In the city where I go ro college you can barely see the brightest stars...not to mention that there are just a few appreciating the beauty of a sky full of stars.
@Qaeyious (2357)
• United States
21 Feb 08
I was thinking about this tonight looking at the lunar eclipse - I am in the northern Californian blob of light on the picture, Sacramento area, where every bloody single light just has to be on.
I had the great fortune of being a boy who spent some time in the Alps in Europe (my step-father was in the army) - now those were INTENSE night skies there, at least back in the 60s. Looking at star charts it looks like the southern hemisphere also have large concentrations of stars. From your map it looks like anywhere between western Brazil and Peru would do the trick.
Or Antartica! :D
@dragonstar13 (1465)
• United States
11 Mar 07
When I was a kid, I would often go to Lake Mead at night and watch the stars (and meteor showers in August.) Being some 20 or so miles from the city, there were no light sources and the entire sky was black velvet with millions of pinpricks of stars. Just unreal.
Now I live in a suburb of Vegas and you can barely see any stars. Oh how I long for the past.
@laltu86 (1249)
• India
28 Mar 07
"Twinkle Twinkle little stars
they dont glow as they were...
up above the world so high
couldnt be seen we only cry "
The nursery rhymes has changed its words , yes trully we are light polluting the night sky, but i cannot get why cannot we switch some lights at night . I feel there is more hustle at night now-a-days than the morning. So only we can hope the senario would change for the best...
