[HN Gopher] Light Pollution Map
___________________________________________________________________
Light Pollution Map
Author : okl
Score : 474 points
Date : 2021-04-23 15:12 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lightpollutionmap.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lightpollutionmap.info)
| ryandrake wrote:
| It would be really great if this and other kinds of geospatial
| data were more open and easily mashed-up. Let's say I wanted to
| find a nice tract of land to buy (Zillow), which has good hiking
| trails (AllTrails), low light pollution for stargazing
| (lightpollutonmap.info), and maybe a dirt airstrip (vfrmaps) to
| fly into. Currently, I have to have four browser windows open
| with each site. There's no way to mash this data up easily
| without reaching for the dev tools and hoping each site provides
| raw data. Wouldn't it be better if everyone made data
| accessibility a priority rather than just packaging it up for
| each site's very narrow use case?
| LegitShady wrote:
| If the sites offer downloads or can be scraped in spatial
| formats you can use QGIS (free and open source) although you
| may need to learn some of the basics of gis like a bit about
| datums and projections.
|
| qgis.org
|
| It is exactly for these kinds of spatial analyses that these
| tools exist. Dev tools might work but this is an existing field
| with advanced tools you won't code yourself any time soon.
| s0rce wrote:
| What about the Gunn valley in BC. Not sure if the airstrip is
| still there.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| You can create OSM sqlite files and use them in OSM. It
| requires some knowledge of GIS but it can be done if you can
| get the raw data. I'd like to turn this light pollution into an
| OSM overlay, also vfrmaps seems pretty interesting too.
| monocasa wrote:
| The map around Denver seems questionable. Same falloff in the
| plains to the east as in the high mountains directly to the west
| doesn't match my experiences.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The oil wells in North Dakota are rivaling all the major US
| metros.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Does this tool take into account elevation? The Mt. Wilson
| observatory, for instance, being on the outskirts of LA, is in a
| red zone on that map, yet is still a great place to stargaze.
|
| Not that this map isn't useful and insightful, but perhaps it can
| make things seem worse than they really are? As long as you have
| mountains around you, it's not like you can't go there to see the
| stars with the naked eye. Last year, that comet was pretty easy
| to see from up there.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| I've camped around the Los Angles area and it is visibly bright
| in the mountains up to 50 miles away to the point that it feels
| like twilight on the horizon all night long.
| krneki wrote:
| World Atlas 2015 model accounts for elevation. So locations
| with higher elevation are darker. But it doesn't account for
| obstacles like a mountain range shielding you from a city
| behind it.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| You've gotta get out to a truly Dark site -- sounds like you'd
| love it.
| jumaro wrote:
| I really like that site. Have used it multiple times to find dark
| spots for photographing the milky way. However, I don't
| understand why the default overlay is from 2015, when there is
| newer data available. First thing I usually do is switching to
| the most recent overlay.
| krneki wrote:
| There are VIIRS maps and World Atlas 2015 map. They show
| fundamentally different things. VIIRS shows you sources of
| light pollution while World Atlas shows you how these sources
| of light impact the sky above you.
| jumaro wrote:
| Thanks for the explanation!
| [deleted]
| oliwarner wrote:
| What's the deal with Belgium? It's lit up like a stadium.
| Dries007 wrote:
| We had a legal requirement for street lamps everywhere until a
| few years ago.
| airstrike wrote:
| Very interesting to contrast developed nations with developing
| ones, as usual. From this map, Brazil looks like a great country
| to stargaze from.
| ahthat wrote:
| What the heck is going on in western North Dakota?
| [deleted]
| jonah-archive wrote:
| This is a bit tangential, but should be a pretty good aurora over
| North America tomorrow (Sat Apr 24) night -- visible on the
| horizon as far south as Salem, OR to Annapolis, MD:
| https://www.gi.alaska.edu/monitors/aurora-forecast
|
| (forecast is for the UTC day, so the prior overnight for NA)
| slowhand09 wrote:
| I live in Annapolis. I can't determine from the link how to
| tell if its projected to be visible there.
| jakear wrote:
| Neat! Any idea where on the Oregon coast would be the best
| place to watch? Hard to tell specifics from that map.
| jakear wrote:
| Answered my own question with the power of macOS preview. So
| the center of the outer band lies at around Newport, then
| continues to just south of Bend.
|
| Cross referencing with the dark sky map, your best bet on the
| coast is probably around Roosevelt Beach, though the Oregon
| Dunes and Dismal Swamp general area also holds promise
|
| (I have no idea how far out of the band you can be while
| still seeing it, they list Salem as a good viewing spot,
| which is much further north than the band)
| jakear wrote:
| Oops, update again: I called up the research institute and
| they informed me that the outer band is actually the line
| past which you cannot see the aurora, so in fact anywhere
| north of Newport should be good, the northernmore the
| better
| slowhand09 wrote:
| I live in Maryland. I can't determine from the link how to tell
| if its projected to be visible there.
| jcurbo wrote:
| Hit "Next" at the top and it will advance a day.
|
| https://www.gi.alaska.edu/modules/custom/aurora-
| forecast/ima...
|
| That's a direct link to the map as of this post.
| Unfortunately we have rain in the forecast here (I also live
| in MD).
| exhilaration wrote:
| It looks like this site is more up to date but there's also Dark
| Site Finder, which is usually what I've seen suggested in
| stargazing discussion: https://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html
| 3dee wrote:
| In the Netherlands a lot of light polution is caused by
| greenhouses.
|
| Now I am wondering: does something like a foil exists that keeps
| light in the greenhouse while letting sunlight pass through?
| intrasight wrote:
| I didn't realize that the Susquehannock State Park was such a
| dark place.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Is it a rendering artifact or something, that the left half of
| the United States is entirely darker than the right half? Like a
| line was drawn down the middle.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| 100th meridian, it's all about water:
| https://www.thoughtco.com/100th-meridian-of-earth-1435087
| Zircom wrote:
| Nope, just that the western US is less densely populated than
| the eastern side of the country and that is directly reflected
| in the amount of light pollution.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| In a straight line right down the middle? I wonder if its
| political, weather-related or what.
| lolinder wrote:
| Nope, if you look at a population density map it has the same
| line. I'm not at all sure why that's true, geographically.
| mahogany wrote:
| I think that's roughly the beginning of the Great Plains. I
| would guess the population density drops significantly
| because of farmland and ranching.
| lolinder wrote:
| Yeah, that seems right, but it's bizarre how straight up-
| and-down it is. I can see why GP thought that it looked
| artificial.
| davidcuddeback wrote:
| No.
|
| https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/c0249398/800wm/C0249398...
| ransom1538 wrote:
| I can still smell the diesel oil cars of Madrid. Are diesel cars
| super popular in EU?
| cbkeller wrote:
| What is fascinating to me about this is the regions including [1]
| in North Dakota or [2] in northern Russia (~300 km southwest of
| Norilsk) that have incredibly large and bright zones of light
| pollution -- more than many large cities -- almost entirely
| disconnected from population, apparently as a result of temporary
| natural gas extraction infrastructure.
|
| The pollution at [1] is larger/brighter than Denver, and [2] is
| about equivalent to Moscow!
|
| [1]
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=7.67&lat=47.9667&lo...
| [2]
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=7.43&lat=67.7473&lo...
| s0rce wrote:
| Mining or oil/gas extraction?
| decibe1 wrote:
| Correct. 'Gas flaring' specifically. I think this data is a
| few years outb of date. They've cut back drastically as of
| late.
| malwarebytess wrote:
| Until the invention of the electric light every night humanity
| communed with the stars. There's no part of human mythology or
| history that hasn't been influenced by a human being looking at
| the night sky.
|
| We have excised this from human experience and it is a
| fundamental mistake. Human beings evolved with the night sky and
| it is criminal that we no longer have the connection.
| geijoenr wrote:
| Is amazing the amount of light pollution in Siberia around the
| oil/gas extraction areas.
| bigthymer wrote:
| Is that the area north of Kazakhstan? That's a lot of light if
| so.
| titzer wrote:
| I am grateful for this map. I used it to scout out Mojave desert
| as a place to do some stargazing. I was surprised that Las Vegas
| is still very clearly visible on the horizon, despite this being
| a very dark "hole" in the map.
|
| You gotta go _really_ far out to get dark skies all the way to
| the horizon.
| dheera wrote:
| If you don't require dark skies for 360 degrees, you can get
| away with going to a place that has dark sky in the direction
| of whatever you're trying to observe.
|
| I've done a lot of deep sky photography within an hour of the
| Bay Area by being mindful of this.
| davidw wrote:
| Behold, SE Oregon:
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=7.67&lat=43.0350&lo...
|
| One of the best places in the country for dark, clear skies.
| s0rce wrote:
| Love it out there. Nice open spaces and sagebrush.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'd like to get out there sometime. Even class 2 is really good
| for me, so we drive one once or twice a year and camp at brooks
| memorial state park north of goldendale. Easy to reach, has
| amenities nearby, still very dark. It has a good
| convenience/dark ratio for people coming from Portland.
| giarc wrote:
| I was looking at North America as a whole, and noticed a very
| bright spot in Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. It's almost one of the
| biggest spots. Wikipedia tells me it has a population of
| basically 2000 people. Why is it so light?
| stormbrew wrote:
| Go a little farther south and find Ft McMurray in Alberta,
| which isn't even traditional oil fields but oilsands
| excavation. Only about 70k people but it's basically as bright
| as the 1m people cities to the south of it (and the extra wide
| halo around Edmonton is likely related to refineries).
|
| Heavy industry is bright I guess.
| steanne wrote:
| "...however, at any given time, several thousand transient
| workers support the Prudhoe Bay oil field."
| giarc wrote:
| The bright spot is bigger than the bright spot over Paris and
| London though. Do they just leave the lights on 24/7 in the
| bay?
| ewhanley wrote:
| Prudhoe is a massive oilfield. It's thousands of wells
| spread covering an area around 200k acres. Every well pad
| and facility has lighting.
|
| Oilfields operate 24/7 so the lights are always on. Of
| course there's ~24 hours of daylight for half the year on
| the North Slope and ~24 hours of darkness in winter.
| afterburner wrote:
| Oil installations are extremely well lit.
| lifeformed wrote:
| Oil flares.
| Pyrodogg wrote:
| Oil industry. Same reason western North Dakota looks like a
| major metropolitan area.
| toddsiegel wrote:
| I saw this same thing.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/01/16/169511949/a.
| ..
| Scottopherson wrote:
| "Many farmers in North Dakota can't prevent drillers from
| drilling -- even if they'd like to. Decades ago, the rights
| to the minerals below those farms were separated from the
| rights to the land itself -- which is why today, energy
| companies can move in, create drilling pads where they
| please, move in trucks and workers, without the farmers'
| consent."
|
| Am I reading this right? A company can just plop drilling
| operations on a farmer's land?
| ewhanley wrote:
| That's right. You can't prevent a mineral rights holder
| from accessing their resources - even if you hold the
| surface rights. The company developing the minerals has
| to compensate the surface owner for roads/pads/etc.
| exhilaration wrote:
| Oilfield flaring, Google has videos:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Prudhoe+Bay+gas+flaring
| dgemm wrote:
| Most of this seems pretty explainable except for the offshore
| spots near South Korea, both east of Busan and near Jeju. Fishing
| related?
| koboll wrote:
| Oil rigs?
| steanne wrote:
| https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/79796/korea-and-the...
| abhayhegde wrote:
| This has been a very useful website. I observed that the more
| "developed" a place is, more the population and inevitably a lot
| of light pollution. I wonder how to reduce light pollution while
| not bargaining with the safety at night.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Give everyone night vision?
| [deleted]
| wishinghand wrote:
| I'm really surprised how polluted some parts of the USA are, like
| North Dakota. I would have figured there'd not be much there.
| datagram wrote:
| Apparently it's due to fracking. Here's an article I found
| about it:
| https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/01/16/169511949/a...
| holub008 wrote:
| I was surprised by North Dakota as well. I believe that bright
| spot corresponds to oil fields.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation
| mygoodaccount wrote:
| The site appears to be using OpenStreetMaps based on the font.
| But I don't see any attribution to OSM anywhere on the site? It's
| a part of the agreement to use OSM...
|
| *I was wrong
| nattaylor wrote:
| It uses Bing Maps and has this:
|
| (c) 2021 Microsoft CorporationEarthstar Geographics SIO(c) 2021
| TomTomTerms of Use
|
| Jurij Stare, www.lightpollutionmap.info (v2.7.7) VIIRS Earth
| Observation Group, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| Are you using a framework for your map or did you come up
| with those tooltip dissolving into tic-tac-toe animations
| yourself?
| nattaylor wrote:
| Typo corrected. I am not the creator and meant to write "It
| uses"
| bb88 wrote:
| So it occurs to me that this map and other light pollution maps
| are estimated, not measured.
|
| The town I live in is in a valley. Go north past the mountains
| and it gets very dark quickly. In fact, the light is blocked
| significantly that I don't have to go very far to get to a dark
| sky.
| jFriedensreich wrote:
| i totally get that we should save energy and make areas great for
| astronomers as well as give insects and birds plenty room to not
| be disturbed by light. BUT living in a german city is just
| depressing at night. you can barely see at a lot of places and
| its just inconvenient to walk, also everything possible is
| closed, there are no big 24h shops (like asda or geant, i dont
| mean spatshops for snacks) or anything urban or exciting i would
| expect in a modern city.also a lot of places have these dim and
| yellow orange depressing lights instead of more daylight like
| modern leds. can someone explain how this is a good thing?
| unbalancedevh wrote:
| This is kind of depressing. I'm looking for a piece of land where
| I can get away from light pollution, and this is telling me that
| there is no such place anywhere near me, even out in the
| "countryside."
| foobiekr wrote:
| Same. I would like to move to somewhere with low light
| pollution but isn't far from good medical care. Impossible, at
| least in the US.
| s0rce wrote:
| Depends how far you want to be but an hour outside of Reno,
| NV. gets you pretty dark either on a mountain or a remote
| basin.
| xattt wrote:
| The eastern end of Prince Edward Island (Canada) comes pretty
| darn close to this darkness. Even though it's sparsely
| populated, it's a place that doesn't feel isolated because of
| social capital.
| Black101 wrote:
| Wow I am surprised that Atlanta has so much light...
|
| This map appears to be pretty close to this image:
| https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/images/712129main_8...
| throwaway823882 wrote:
| Anyone have similar links for sounds?
|
| National Park Service sound maps:
| https://www.nps.gov/subjects/sound/soundmap.htm
|
| National Transportation Noise Map:
| https://maps.dot.gov/BTS/NationalTransportationNoiseMap/
| SergeAx wrote:
| What's the deal with the Gulf of Guinea? Night fishing at scale?
| rebuilder wrote:
| I checked the area I live in, it's pretty rural and has no red,
| except for one blob that seems to be in the middle of nowhere. So
| I looked it up on a satellite photo and sure enough, there's a
| large greenhouse operation there.
|
| Seems odd that they'd be running their lights at night, though.
| dubcanada wrote:
| Depends on what they are growing, cacti and orchids for example
| LOVE 24/7 light and grow way faster then the typical 16/8 light
| schedule.
|
| But most are probably some form of veggie or flower so they
| need 16/8 light schedule.
| rebuilder wrote:
| It's veggies, leafy greens as far as I can tell.
| pcurve wrote:
| Why is there so much light pollution in the middle of ocean,
| south east coast of South Korea?
| bamboozled wrote:
| Just a theory, commercial fishing, especially for squid uses
| flood lights to attract squid to the surface?
| technothrasher wrote:
| I took my boy to Botswana a couple years ago, coming from the
| bright red on that map of the East Coast of the US. The first
| night I told him to look up, and it was so much fun watching his
| mind get blown by what he saw.
| the_arun wrote:
| Isn't Light Pollution directly proportional to population
| density?
| ehsankia wrote:
| In general yes, though just looking quickly, it seems like
| Belgium for example was a lot brighter than surrounding
| countries, and I don't think they have that high of a density?
|
| I would liked to see a map like this normalized for population
| density, though not sure how granular that data is.
| skerit wrote:
| Belgium has a pretty high population density: 375/km2. That's
| the 9th most densely populated country of the world. And that
| is mostly because of Flanders, the part that is actually lit
| up on the map. Flanders has a population density of 484/km2.
| bena wrote:
| Looking at the US map, it seems to be.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| Nice project! A few questions:
|
| How is this data collected? (I'm guessing a satellite image of
| city lights across the world)
|
| I'm trying to understand the scale. Zenith means overhead, so
| overhead sky brightness. The magnitude scale stops at 17 but I
| thought magnitudes above 7 is no longer visible to the human eye
| [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_magnitude
| bttrfl wrote:
| this is explained in the FAQ. They merge different sources,
| notably data from SQMs which "stands for Sky Quality Meter.
| It's a small device that can measure sky quality ie. darkness.
| It's widely used by amateur astronomers because it's fairly
| cheap and gives you fast results which can be easily compared
| to other SQM users."
|
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/help.html
| [deleted]
| agys wrote:
| We proposed - as a counter-point to the many "light-festivals" -
| a festival of darkness: all the lights of the city would be off
| for one night. It didn't get trough, unfortunately.
| baltimore wrote:
| This place in Kazakhstan is lit!
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=5.62&lat=48.7573&lo...
| afterburner wrote:
| Check out this spot in northern Siberia:
|
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=5.58&lat=67.9757&lo...
| iguessthislldo wrote:
| I was drawn to that same spot because it was big but there's
| no city there on the map. I opened google map to see what was
| there and found this: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Vanko
| r+manufacturing+site/...
|
| Seems to be an oil field:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vankor_Field
|
| Also didn't google it as much, but it looks like oil fields
| in Texas give off plenty of light as well: https://www.lightp
| ollutionmap.info/#zoom=9.14&lat=28.6928&lo...
| shuntress wrote:
| I was looking at this same spot.
|
| People have uploaded some great pictures from there[0]!
|
| [0] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Vankor+manufacturing+
| site/...
| baltimore wrote:
| Oil field or something?
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/48%C2%B014'12.6%22N+57%C2%...
| hbosch wrote:
| I assume it must be. The incredibly bright spots at Keene,
| North Dakota and the northern edge of Alaska have similar low
| population/bright spots.
| s1mon wrote:
| Seems like the right answer. I was looking around on some
| maps until I found things marked SWD - which is Salt Water
| Disposal. Apparently the "safe" way to dispose of the used
| fluids from fracking.
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/search/swd+north+dakota/@47.669
| 0...
| 2iP1zbR wrote:
| i remember a long time ago i was told north korea was a dark spot
| on earth when viewed from space, interesting to see it on an
| actual light pollution map. not that north korea is alone in this
| aspect.
| dawnerd wrote:
| The stretch between Yreka and Redding gets pretty dark. Kinda
| creepy some nights when you're the only person on I-5.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I need to download this overlay to import to osmand
| Forbo wrote:
| My state designated a Dark Sky Park in an area that's Bortle
| class 4. Is the designation really that flawed? That's a shame, I
| was hoping to some decent stargazing in without having to drive
| for hours on end. Alas.
|
| Edit: Looks like these are the criteria the IDA use.
| https://www.darksky.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IDSP-Guid...
| mvexel wrote:
| The data from the International Dark-Sky Association[0] would be
| a good complement to this.
|
| In case you're interested what a dark sky town ordinance looks
| like for a small town that has the designation near where I live,
| see here[1].
|
| [0] https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/finder/
| [1]
| https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/torreyut/latest/torrey...
| dheera wrote:
| Ironically, it's not very international. 22 out of the 29
| "International" Dark Sky Communities are in the US:
|
| https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/communiti...
|
| I can think of a lot of towns outside the US that have
| excellent dark skies but they aren't listed here.
| bchanudet wrote:
| Dark Sky communities are only one kind of designations, there
| are also Dark Sky "Parks" [0], "Reserves" [1], and
| "Sanctuaries" [2]. Those are much more scattered through the
| world.
|
| [0] https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/parks/
|
| [1] https://www.darksky.org/our-
| work/conservation/idsp/reserves/
|
| [2] https://www.darksky.org/our-
| work/conservation/idsp/sanctuari...
| dheera wrote:
| It still looks _very_ US-biased.
|
| I can think of several dozen places and parks in northern
| Scandinavia, western China, Mongolia, Canada that are
| almost devoid of light pollution that aren't even on this
| list.
|
| Also almost the entire country of Iceland and all of its
| parks are excellent dark sky and not even mentioned here.
|
| And that's just places I have personally been. I'm sure
| there are huge parts of Africa, Australia and the Middle
| East, and South America are excellent as well, and one
| would think that if I were to travel to those continents
| that I could look to a website called the "International"
| Dark Sky Association to find out where the best dark sky
| parks are in those places. But no.
|
| It just seems a bit hypocritical to me to call it
| "International" but with very little attention to the
| wealth of excellent dark sky areas outside the US.
| bchanudet wrote:
| Oh yeah I do agree that it's still very US-centered and a
| tad hypocritical.
|
| I'd say it's mostly because there is an application
| process. Unlike for example travel guides where people go
| around the world to discover new places, IDA is waiting
| for those places to apply. If you add the language
| barrier, the quite long list of requirements and
| political actions to make to be able to apply, that only
| reduces the list of candidates.
|
| I suppose there are also less-known local initiatives
| throughout the world. Here in France, we have the ANPCEN
| [0], fighting against light pollution and delivering
| labels to cities that take actions against light
| pollution (like shutting off the streetlights from 11PM
| to 5AM).
|
| [0] https://www.anpcen.fr/?id_rub=19&rub=participez-%E0-v
| illes-e... (in French, but there is a Google Translate
| button in the footer)
| steanne wrote:
| they give attention to the places that apply for the
| designations.
| anonymfus wrote:
| I like this. I think it would be also useful to add isolines for
| brightness of various astronomical objects to the map. I want to
| easily understand where I need to go to see Milky Way for
| example.
| [deleted]
| mig39 wrote:
| Is the light pollution in the North Sea really that intense? How
| about the Grand Banks off Atlantic Canada / Newfoundland?
|
| Are these due to oil platforms?
|
| I find it hard to believe that the light pollution at the head of
| the Grand Banks, almost 200km off shore, is equivalent to the the
| metro area of St. John's, nearby.
| birktj wrote:
| The North Sea ones are oil platforms, yes. I believe the light
| intensity is largely because of gas flares [1], but I might be
| wrong.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_flare
| afterburner wrote:
| It's probably just because oil installations tend to be very
| well lit, probably for safety.
| nemacol wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernia_oil_field
|
| Just found this as I was attempting to figure out what the
| bright light is off Newfoundland.
| cozzyd wrote:
| Yeah, the oil fields seem insanely bright relative to cities. I
| wonder if this has something to do with the sensor spectral
| sensitivity or something...
| Mertax wrote:
| I question the accuracy of this when 19.41869, -92.06075
| supposedly has enormous light pollution. What would be the cause
| of this?
| csomar wrote:
| Same thing in the Arabian Sea. Judging by the Suez canal, these
| might be ships. Though I'm surprised that Ships emit as much
| light pollution as cities?
| postalrat wrote:
| My guess would be oil wells or some other sort of industry in
| the sea.
| supernova87a wrote:
| I'm curious to know when the growing number satellites passing
| through your sky become a bigger problem than the light
| pollution?
|
| Although, it is a qualitatively different kind of "noise" --
| sparkly bright dots that fly through the dark sky periodically,
| versus a glow that permeates the whole sky.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| It's not like nothing can be done about light pollution. For
| example Germany has a law about light pollution, and it shows on
| this map. It less polluted than its neighbours, although it has
| higher population density and urbanization level.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Germany doesn't seem appreciably better than France, looking at
| the map.
|
| Peak levels are the same for Berlin as for Paris. The _width_
| of Paris 's light pollution is wider, but it's also double the
| population of the metropolitan area.
|
| And actually, rural areas of Germany seem consistently and
| significantly _brighter_ (worse) than rural areas in France,
| across both countries.
|
| _Is_ there really a lot that can be done about light
| pollution? Isn 't it mostly due to streetlights, which you want
| on for safety?
|
| I mean, sure there are some metropolitan downtown areas with
| bright lighting of advertising, but that's very localized.
|
| Is there really low-hanging fruit that cut could overall light
| pollution by, say, 50%, without impacting safety?
| throw0101a wrote:
| The International Dark Sky Association has some template laws
| that can be used as a starting point:
|
| > _The MLO offers several innovations to outdoor lighting
| regulation, including the use of lighting zones to classify
| land use with appropriate lighting levels for each. The MLO
| also makes use of the "BUG" (Backlight, Uplight and Glare)
| classification of outdoor lighting fixtures to ensure that only
| well-shielded fixtures are used._
|
| * https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/public-
| policy/mode...
| obviouslynotme wrote:
| I would vote for anyone who would even talk about light
| pollution as a serious issue. All my friends (rightly) think I
| am a wacko because I advocate the removal of all streetlights
| and regulation of private outdoor lights.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Lord knows if I were emperor or whatever, I would have some
| fairly draconian laws on the books, with hefty fines, about so
| many light sources. I can walk around at night and read a paper
| books. It's easy. Some places, I feel like the going standard
| is "can someone perform open heart surgery on this stretch of
| road?"
|
| A lot of it is a race to the bottom -- look at my sign! Sure,
| my business is not open right now, but I have a sign!
| Advertising alone is a huge detriment to the light pollution
| landscape.
|
| Much of it comes from misguided "this will be safer" concerns.
| And so half the neighborhood has these floodlights installed
| above their doors that will be on all night, plus little solar
| lights everywhere. Oftentimes, they're positioned so poorly
| that it actually makes seeing people walking around _more_
| difficult, due to having these things shine away in my eyes.
| meristohm wrote:
| Tucson, Arizona has laws to limit light pollution out of
| consideration for the nearby observatories. I remember
| bicycling along roads and the lights turning off
| intermittently. Great to be able to see the stars at night,
| though; I'd much rather that than lighting all the things.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| One of my particularly patriotic neighbors has a big US flag
| atop a pole in his front yard. And he's following flag code,
| making sure that since he leaves it up at night it is
| properly lit. With a couple great big floodlights aimed
| straight up at it from the ground.
| macintux wrote:
| I was driving down the highway at night a few years ago,
| before digital billboards were as common here. I saw one with
| a dark background that I was struggling to read, but then it
| transitioned to a different ad with a bright white
| background.
|
| Instantly blinded. I was fortunate there weren't a lot of
| cars around, because it took a few seconds to be able to see
| clearly again.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I don't understand how digital billboards are legal.
| They're way too bright for night driving.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=7.00&lat=34.1123&lo...
|
| Flagstaff vs. Prescott in Arizona is another good example.
| Flagstaff has strict output per area limits, Prescott has none,
| while the density of both areas is similar.
| [deleted]
| teslabox wrote:
| Flagstaff makes an effort to enforce their lighting
| ordinances, Prescott makes no effort whatsoever.
|
| I think the problem is that all the people who knew why the
| lighting ordinances were passed retired. Because Prescott
| doesn't have Lowell Observatory in the city limits the
| reasons behind the ordinances were forgotten.
|
| Blue-white outdoor lighting should be prosecuted as a public
| nuisance.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Cave Creek Arizona is another dark sky area (where we live)
| and it's an excellent thing
| Naac wrote:
| What is the law? What are people legally required to do?
| dheera wrote:
| Most light pollution laws limit outdoor lighting fixtures and
| require them to only emit downwards and not upwards.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Probably the most noticable change in recent years is the
| replacement of mercury-vapor streetlights with the yellow-
| orange sodium-vapor lights, or with orangish LEDs (although
| some use blueish LEDs that are not that great for light
| pollution).
|
| In terms of actual legal requirements, Bavaria prohibits sky
| beams/searchlights directed upwards, and the illumination of
| facades of public buildings between 11pm and morning.
| acwan93 wrote:
| San Jose, California does this for the Lick Observatory at
| Mt. Hamilton, although I think they're switching to blueish
| LEDs. The sodium-vapor lights are frequently mistaken as
| yellow traffic lights though, in my experience.
| NavinF wrote:
| yellow-orange sodium-vapor lights are terrible for anyone
| who's not an astronomer. The sharp output spectrum prevents
| humans from seeing color
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Do you really need color vision in the middle of the
| night?
|
| Even with wide spectrum lights, turning them down is
| going to suppress colors anyway.
| terramex wrote:
| While switching to LEDs can improve naked eye view of night
| sky, it sometimes negatively impact amateur
| astrophotography as mercury and especially sodium lamps
| have narrow emission spectrum and it can be filtered off
| using optical bandpass filters. LEDs light have much wider
| spectrum and cannot be filtered off.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| Actually, I stand corrected, there's no federal German law
| about light pollution. It's left to different federal states,
| and most of them incorporated regulations about light in
| their legislation.
|
| I can't find an English text but the document from the
| federal parliament below summarizes the legal state of the
| topic in Germany.
|
| https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/632966/7ba7c4cd1cfef8.
| ..
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Is this not just a population map?
|
| https://m.xkcd.com/1138/
| clutch89 wrote:
| Certainly not. See the other comments about light pollution
| from heavy industries (oil, etc), and also countries with
| lower-than-expected light pollution compared to their
| population, due to laws (Germany)
| steanne wrote:
| mostly but not completely and the exceptions are interesting.
| cheeaun wrote:
| Question, how is the gradient heatmap thing implemented?
| gfrangakis wrote:
| What is this random spot with seemingly nothing around it in
| Russia?
|
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=5.85&lat=68.2729&lo...
| aportnoy wrote:
| APG flaring of the Vankor field?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vankor_Field
| ebertx wrote:
| There are a lot of strange spots in Russia. I was looking at a
| spot south of the Pechora Sea on the light pollution map, then
| comparing it with Google Maps/Earth. I can't see anything that
| would correlate with that much light.
|
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=6.17&lat=67.1945&lo...
| davidbrent wrote:
| I love this sort of thing, but like many heatmaps, I wish it had
| a color blind toggle.
| holoduke wrote:
| It's probably similar to a map showing where most rich people are
| living.
| gibspaulding wrote:
| I was thinking that too, and was fully expecting the top
| comment to be a joke about heat maps that are actually
| population maps, but it turns out there are some interesting
| insights I wouldn't have expected. Namely that there are
| substantial differences when comparing areas with light
| pollution legislation with similar unregulated areas; also
| interesting to see how much light pollution there is even at
| sea!
| korethr wrote:
| Is it just me, or does his look quite a lot like a population
| density heat-map? XKCD 1138[1] comes to mind.
|
| For those persons concerned solely about light polution, this is
| definitely useful. But another thing I think would be interesting
| is this map, corrected for population density. Mentioned down
| thread is that different localities have different rules
| affecting lighting, and that this can be seen in the map.
| Correcting this map for population density would probably show
| that even more.
|
| 1. https://xkcd.com/1138/
| [deleted]
| ianbooker wrote:
| Every time I am on a motorway in Belgium I wonder why they have
| such a huge amount of streetlights on highways. Maybe because it
| doesn't matter anymore in terms of light pollution? :D
| seszett wrote:
| There's actually an explanation for this.
|
| At first, it was intended to basically burn the excess
| electricity produced at night by the first generation of
| nuclear power plants in Belgium, at a time when it was
| difficult to reduce their power output on demand.
|
| From then on, because highways were always lightened up it was
| unnecessary to use reflective paint and signage on the
| highways.
|
| And today, we're left with signage and paint that are difficult
| to read at night unless the highways are lined with
| streetlights, which makes streetlights necessary even though
| the power plants have been able to adapt to load for a long
| time now. You can really notice it on the dark sections that do
| exist, signage is actually difficult to see when in most other
| countries reflective signage is almost easier to see at night
| than by day.
|
| Now the streetlights are being slowly turned off, some are
| being replaced with LEDs, and some of the signage is being
| updated to reflective, but I don't know if there's any official
| roadmap to eventually arrive to dark highways with reflective
| signage.
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| Very interesting! I remember seeing
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/world/europe/belgium-
| elec...
|
| That article seems to point to potentially larger conflicts
| of interest:
|
| The official explanation is that it helps road safety and
| provides security. But critics doubt this and say the
| phenomenon sheds light not only on Belgium's roads but also
| on a mutually profitable relationship among its politicians,
| electricity distributors and main energy supplier,
| Electrabel.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I find it fascinating that this also works as a wealth map
| dmrotar wrote:
| Resources like this (and as others have mentioned, Dark Site
| Finder) are very useful for astrophotography, especially for a
| hobbyist like myself. Many don't realize how relatively close
| they live to areas with great nighttime viewing conditions.
|
| For example, upstate New York has some great viewing locations,
| so even if you live in NYC it's an easy weekend trip. Here's a
| shot I took of the Milky Way taken from such a site (one of the
| darker spots in the map):
| https://www.lumathon.com/photo/_qTYviEhy/Colors-of-the-Milky...
|
| Edit: a few more of my other shots of the night sky for anyone
| interested, various locations, all of which were scouted using a
| light pollution map like the one posted --
| https://www.lumathon.com/dan/photos/tag/stars
| agogdog wrote:
| Many (like myself) also don't realize how far away they live
| from areas with great nighttime viewing conditions (a 3-4 hour
| drive for me).
|
| :(
| amoorthy wrote:
| Wow amazing! I've been itching to show my kids the Milky Way. I
| myself have only seen it once in New Zealand decades ago. What
| is the minimum dark sky rating to be able to see it with the
| naked eye?
|
| I live in the Bay Area and I know there is Pigeon Point
| Lighthouse which is a dark sky spot but I think it's often
| cloudy. If anyone has better suggestions would be grateful to
| hear those.
| doubtfuluser wrote:
| I once got nice shots from Mt Tam. You can hardly see it, but
| with an ok camera doing long exposure you can get some nice
| pictures - even being so close to SF
| derwiki wrote:
| Yea the blanket of fog over SF can actually help trap light
| and make the sky more visible. Watched a meteor shower from
| Tam once.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Lick Observatory
| packetslave wrote:
| Not open to non-professionals after dark except for a
| handful of "Photo Nights" each summer. If you drive up
| there after dark, you'll get yelled at (at a minimum) or
| they'll call the cops on you for trespassing.
| shagie wrote:
| I'd suggest taking a road trip and go out to Panamint Springs
| outside of Death Valley. I forget if it was Zabriskie Point
| or Father Crowley Vista Point when I was there... but I felt
| that I could see _all_ the stars that night. There was a
| distant glow to the east that was Vegas and another glow to
| the south west that was LA.
|
| This also has an advantage that it's dry and so you don't get
| clouds as much.
|
| Though, specifically for the Milky Way:
| https://darksitefinder.com/how-to-see-the-milky-way/
| tshaddox wrote:
| We stayed 2 nights at the hotel there in Panamint Springs
| back in December, and even right outside the cabins (and
| nowhere near a new moon) the Milky Way was clearly visible
| after letting your eyes adjust for a few minutes. This was
| in the parking lot where there's no real attempt at
| avoiding nearby light pollution.
| s0rce wrote:
| Bit of a trek but the panoche and tumey hills and other spots
| along the Western edge of the Central valley are dark and
| remote.
| mceachen wrote:
| I don't think these maps take into account mountains.
|
| There are rest stops on 280 (just south of 92) that (at least
| used to) host telescope parties:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/vWEkH1bSvaUZKZHS8. You can definitely
| see the Milky Way from there, but remember it'll take 30
| minutes to acclimate your eyes: tell your kids to stay off
| their phones (!). You're behind the San Andreas range to
| block out a lot of the peninsula light pollution, and you've
| got the coastal range holding back the fog (at least most of
| the time). Less moon is (much) better, and use a satellite
| tracker to have something else to watch out for.
| krneki wrote:
| World Atlas 2015 model accounts for elevation. So locations
| with higher elevation are darker. But it doesn't account
| for obstacles like a mountain range shielding you from a
| city behind it.
| dheera wrote:
| Davenport is a slightly better bet weather-wise than Pigeon
| Point, as due to the shape of the coastline and prevailing
| winds the clouds usually get swept past it. But it still gets
| cloudy from time to time there. Route 1 in general is a toss-
| up.
|
| If you live in South Bay, the hands-down best place IMO is
| Pinnacles National Park. It's only 1.5 hours from San Jose,
| and easily daytrippable.
|
| If you don't want to go that far, try anywhere along the
| Airline Highway, in the Paicines or Tres Pinos area (just get
| away from streetlights; for example, Panoche Road is a very,
| very dark road), Coyote Lake (shoreline is open for
| stargazing 24 hours; pay with machine at entrance), Henry Coe
| State Park, or anywhere along Mines Road but at least 15km
| southeast of Livermore.
|
| Also, if you're going for Milky Way viewing, do make sure you
| know when and where the Milky Way is visible. The bright part
| and galactic core are only visible very late at night now,
| after 11pm or so, in the east direction. In mid-Summer the MW
| will be in the sky all night. In autumn the MW will be in the
| southwestern skies early at night and not visible late at
| night.
|
| At other times, such as in winter, the outer parts of the
| Milky Way are in the sky, but you need much, much darker
| skies to make anything of it, and it's hard to see without
| long exposure photography. The winter side of the galaxy is
| actually really beautiful if you do a long enough exposure
| and all the signal processing necessary to get rid of noise.
| snitzr wrote:
| When I was at the Grand Canyon, I saw the milky way right
| after the sun set and before the sky was fully dark.
|
| I've also seen the milky way in West Virginia.
| sciurus wrote:
| Based on https://astrobackyard.com/the-bortle-scale/ I'm
| guessing 3 or 2 to see it well.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I thought that the Northern Hemisphere was basically pointing
| away from the Galactic Centre, so shots like this were
| basically only from South America or Australia etc.
|
| Its - brilliant. Well done and thank you
|
| But .. oh man .. the _whole_ of the UK is polluted :-( maybe a
| few bits of one Scottish Loch are free.
| davidcuddeback wrote:
| > _I thought that the Northern Hemisphere was basically
| pointing away from the Galactic Centre, so shots like this
| were basically only from South America or Australia etc._
|
| From 40N latitude one can see the sky as far south as -50deg
| declination (50 degrees south of the celestial equator). It's
| true that the galactic center is in the southern sky, but
| it's still visible from the northern hemisphere. If you can
| see Sagittarius (the teapot), you're looking in the direction
| of the galactic center.
|
| The GP's shot is representative of what one can expect from
| about 40N. From the southern hemisphere, I've seen shots of
| the milky way that span from horizon to horizon, so I do
| think they have the better vantage point.
| closeparen wrote:
| Public places like parks are generally closed at night, aren't
| they? Are there special sites that welcome nighttime visitors?
| Do you get camping permits? Or just hope the police don't
| notice?
| andreareina wrote:
| Gorgeous. You probably know this already, but you can avoid the
| star trails by making several shorter exposures and stacking
| them.
| cpach wrote:
| Great shot!
| dheera wrote:
| I do a lot of deep sky landscape photography
| (https://instagram.com/dheeranet/) and dark skies are essential
| to that. Most of these are taken from pretty dark spots on the
| map in California.
|
| Especially essential is planning for dark skies _in the
| direction of_ whatever it is you are trying to shoot, which is
| in some cases arguably _slightly_ more important than the dark
| sky level of where you are standing. If a galaxy rises over a
| city, it 's going to be hard to image even if you're far from
| the city.
|
| One of the tools I use the most is an app called "PlanIt Pro",
| which gives you pretty much all the info you need, including
| being able to show where in the sky various astronomical
| objects are, their magnitude, a VR simulation of them with the
| 3D topo map, and lots of other things. It also has a light
| pollution map built-in, and can show you the position of the
| Milky Way. I plan many of my shots with it. There's a free
| version and I can't remember which features are omitted from
| that but it's been worth every penny for me.
| 2bitencryption wrote:
| Whoa, that site (lumathon) looks like _exactly_ the sort of
| "Flickr alternative" I've been looking for.
|
| It's so performant, and the zooming-as-you-scroll part is
| really elegant.
|
| If that's your site, which it seems to be - great job!
| dmrotar wrote:
| Yeah it's indeed my service that I'm in the process of
| getting off the ground. Thank you sincerely for the
| compliment -- the UI is definitely something into which a lot
| of hours went so I'm happy that it's having a positive impact
| on the experience. (I too wasn't satisfied with some aspects
| of Flickr and the other big photo hosts which is why I
| started work on it.)
|
| Do you do any astrophotography?
| 2bitencryption wrote:
| Awesome work.
|
| I don't do astrophotography, my interests are more
| terrestrial, namely street photography :D
|
| There are lots of street photographers I follow, such as
| Shin Noguchi [0]. But I absolutely _hate_ how Instagram is
| the go-to platform for photographers nowadays. I can 't
| imagine a worse viewing experience for street photography,
| which tends to be ~35mm and landscape, than my phone's
| narrow, vertical screen. It's awful. But it's the most
| popular platform today, so there's really no getting around
| it.
|
| [0]
| https://shinnoguchiphotography.com/photo/something_here/
| [deleted]
| geenew wrote:
| Neat to see the historical data in the VIIRS maps. The area
| around Uttar Pradesh / Bihar really seems to have developed a lot
| in the past 8 years, for example.
|
| I'd love to see an animation of this.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| Still dreaming that someday we regard light pollution as the
| pollutant that it really is, though tbh I have little hope.
|
| 99% of the people I talk to about this basically wish we could
| replicate daytime levels of light all around the clock. They want
| even brighter streetlights, even more lights around the outside
| of their homes, etc.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I wish we would also do the same thing with low frequency
| sound.
| bondolo wrote:
| It was interesting to see that the timeline accurately reflects
| the changeover from sodium vapor to LED street lighting in my
| community. Still too much light, but better.
| Xophmeister wrote:
| What are all the blobs in the North Sea? Oil rigs?
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