[HN Gopher] I've overlayed stays on a light pollution satellite map
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I've overlayed stays on a light pollution satellite map
Author : louison11
Score : 401 points
Date : 2023-10-31 12:04 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (darkhotels.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (darkhotels.co)
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Hey, very good idea and nice execution. I like that it finds my
| location, even without asking or requesting permission. Extra
| points for having a track prices option.
|
| I have a couple of suggestions/recommendations if I may:
|
| - Put a Bortle filter so that hotels on specific (dark) areas can
| be selected. I understand this is a bit difficult but it would
| make an even better filtering option.
|
| - Localize it, give us an option to see prices in different/local
| currency. Currently it's only visible in USD.
|
| - I can see the Affiliate ID from Booking, perhaps it would be
| better to mention this somewhere to avoid complaints from users.
|
| - Perhaps add a popup/permission notification for accessing
| location (see previous point as well).
|
| - Put an info/about page so that you can give more info and also
| take some credit for your work.
| gus_massa wrote:
| > _- Perhaps add a popup /permission notification for accessing
| location (see previous point as well)._
|
| Is the site using the location from the browser or just IP
| location? (My location was 240Km (150 miles) away from my
| home.)
|
| I want to suggest also permalinks.
| ale42 wrote:
| Probably just IP location given that it doesn't ask for any
| location access (unless you click on the button to center the
| map around your position)
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| My ISP connects to the greater internet in minneapolis even
| though I'm in iowa, and that's where the map centered on for
| me initially. Usually means they are just doing geo off the
| IP.
| digging wrote:
| It must be IP because the browser can't access GeoLocation
| without asking.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| > I like that it finds my location, even without asking or
| requesting permission.
|
| I actually found this quite concerning!
| donkeyd wrote:
| Guess what, literally every web site you visit can do this
| based on IP geolocation. If you're really concerned about
| this, use a VPN.
| doublemint2203 wrote:
| I'll try and make this. beginner cs undergrad looking for maps-
| based things to build. if anyone can reply and hit me with
| tips, quick info, or just a laundry list of things I'd be wise
| to google & learn to use, please lmk thanks!
| gkfasdfasdf wrote:
| Nice! I love how the date picker shows the phase of the moon.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Yes, this is very handy for people looking for a dark site. Not
| that they don't know it already, but it's good to have it there
| in the calendar.
| ricksunny wrote:
| This itnerant stargazer says...awesome :) I've been paying close
| attention to light pollution (and access to a telescope or
| stargazing tour services, so there's that too :p) while traveling
| internationally recently.
| Scandiravian wrote:
| Really nice idea, but I'm having an issue with the date-picker;
| can't change the month, so it's stuck in October (I'm using brave
| browser on android)
| bberenberg wrote:
| Hmm, seems like a cool idea, but I can't actually get it to show
| any hotels or anything? Probably pebkac but just FYI.
| riz_ wrote:
| Looks like the HN traffic has exhausted their API quota.
| louison11 wrote:
| OP Here. Exactly. We have a rate limit imposed by our data
| provider that's too low for this traffic atm. Hopefully you
| guys still "get" the concept and awesome to see such
| feedback. Try and come back when things calm down. Thanks.
| I'm working on ways to increase the rate limit/find
| alternative data providers.
| amself wrote:
| just curious, which API are you using to get this data (the
| hotels)?
| loudgas wrote:
| Neat idea. Is there a color legend somewhere? I don't see one.
| chacha102 wrote:
| Was also looking for a color legend. I can generally understand
| the different colors/layers, but was initially confused.
|
| Text that explains exactly what each color refers to would be
| helpful.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| You're right it's missing. It shows the Bortle class of each
| location, see https://www.lightpollutionmap.info for a better
| explanation.
| beardyw wrote:
| My phone screen got so full of stays I couldn't see the map!
| Thanks for the link.
| eightyfive wrote:
| There really _should_ be a legend somewhere, but in practice
| the amateur astronomy community has standardized on a
| convention that 's more or less the same in color scheme and
| scale to the one reported here:
| https://djlorenz.github.io/astronomy/lp2020/colors.html.
|
| You'll see the same scale in use at other light pollution
| sites, such as:
|
| http://www.cleardarksky.com/maps/lp/large_light_pollution_ma...
|
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info
|
| https://cires.colorado.edu/artificial-sky
| Ridj48dhsnsh wrote:
| Edit: I misread that you're showing light pollution, not air
| pollution, so disregard my comments. But maybe an idea for
| another site?
|
| Very cool. I was buying some land a few months ago, and made a
| similar map of the country to help choose areas with consistently
| good air quality.
|
| I couldn't get the calendar to change from October, so I couldn't
| check myself, but I was wondering if you adjust for seasonality.
| Some areas have a distinct "burning season" when farmers burn
| their fields and the air quality is significantly worse.
|
| I was also wondering if you're using publicly available sensor
| data. The granularity looks a lot better than what I had
| downloaded.
| seszett wrote:
| This is _light_ pollution, it doesn 't have much seasonality
| and evolves slowly.
| kedean wrote:
| On a technical level that's true. But the actual intention
| here is "places where you can see the sky", not places with
| low light pollution. Air quality is highly seasonal, and
| winter tends to have far clearer skies for assorted reasons.
| Wouldn't you be a bit upset if you booked a place way out in
| the country for stargazing and every rancher had just lit
| their fields ablaze?
|
| That said it's probably asking quite a lot to composite that
| kind of data together in any meaningful way. You need a lot
| of domain knowledge for that.
| EricMausler wrote:
| Any thoughts on how someone would do something similar for
| water?
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > you're showing light pollution, not air pollution
|
| I wonder if there would be a strong correlation between the
| two.
| tomcam wrote:
| Brilliant! Wish it had a color legend. But I always wanted a site
| like this.
| iandanforth wrote:
| Thanks for doing this! I'd really like a "Search this Area"
| button. My first instinct was to use the map to find somewhere
| dark, then look at stays.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| You've got a bunch of places all placed at 0 latitude 0
| longitude, saying "null". You may want to check your data
| sources.
| swasheck wrote:
| null island is a tourist hotspot!!
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The airlines have trouble scheduling flights, though...
|
| ;-)
| internetter wrote:
| A couple times I've found my flight taking a detour: https:
| //dropover.cloud/253a84#33241fcd-b58a-4c23-9c77-779072...
| progne wrote:
| I used to live in an RV & cabins park in a very dark area,
| actually inside of the radius of the Very Large Array radio
| telescope. As part of a barter arrangement I made a website for
| the park. On the site I pitched the park as a destination for
| amateur astronomers. Come camp inside of a telescope! We put up
| some Google ads to that effect.
|
| I don't think they ever got a nibble from that. It turns out that
| the population of amateur astronomers willing to drive long
| distances to dark spots isn't all that large.
|
| But this is the internet, and a niche interest can have a
| significant following, and you're not trying to make a bunch of
| money with this. So from us dark sky lovers, thanks.
| zf00002 wrote:
| Maybe because you were already in New Mexico which has some
| pretty good dark areas? I'm up in Santa Fe, I don't need to
| drive long to get fairly dark.
| progne wrote:
| Yes. Also I think we astronuts tend to avoid campgrounds (too
| many people with lights) and motels (we're up all night). A
| piece of remote public land is just more suited to the
| purpose.
| Zancarius wrote:
| We also have state-wide anti-light pollution regulations on
| the books[1]; unfortunately, enforcement is spotty and
| depends on the community.
|
| Where I live (southern NM) we've had a steady influx of
| people from out of state, and the first thing they tend to do
| is install outdoor security lighting that is in clear
| violation of the NSPA. All that to say that I have noticed
| that some of the newcomers who were in violation may have
| been reported since their fixtures are now turned off after
| 11pm. So, enforcement _does_ happen; it just takes time.
| Thankfully, we have a few astronomers in the community!
|
| (The one deficiency in the NSPA is that it defines fixtures
| based on wattage rather than lumens. There have been efforts
| to change this language, but they've stalled.)
|
| [1] http://www.darkskynm.org/lightinglaws.html
| lp251 wrote:
| I moved from Santa Fe County (Rancho Viejo area) to the
| Denver metro area and am sad every time I go outside at
| night. We could see the Milky Way most nights.
|
| The NM sky is amazing during the day, too. Such a vibrant
| blue!
| digging wrote:
| > I don't think they ever got a nibble from that. It turns out
| that the population of amateur astronomers willing to drive
| long distances to dark spots isn't all that large.
|
| That's quite surprising to me as a person who occasionally will
| drive long distances just to see the dark night sky without a
| telescope. But I guess any group looks well populated from the
| inside. I suppose amateur astronomers with good equipment can
| get quite nice views where they live, though.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| The distances in New Mexico are huge and not much population.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| The Cosmic Campground is pretty close and they often have guys
| with telescopes there.
| karagenit wrote:
| What's up with North Dakota? There's a spot in the middle of
| nowhere that has pollution levels on par with major metro areas.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| Probably fracking rigs. Where I'm from in the Marcellus shale
| region of Western Pennsylvania, you can see rigs on top of
| hills for miles when the leaves are down in winter
|
| Edit: This map of Bakken Formation rigs correlates to their
| location in Western ND
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation#/media/File:B...
| Nicholas_C wrote:
| I noticed that as well, it's gas flaring from O&G production.
| You can see similar patches south of San Antonio (the Eagle
| Ford shale) and in West Texas (the Permian Basin) and probably
| a few other spots too.
| cainxinth wrote:
| I'll never forget a moment from the bus trip I took across the
| U.S. west as a kid when we got to Montana. We had been driving
| for hours and got to our cabins far from everywhere late at
| night. A bus load of tired kids filed off, eyes half open, and
| then someone said "Hey, look up!"
|
| Cue two dozen kids saying "oohs and ahhs" in sync. Don't think
| I've seen such a spectacularly starry night since.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| Cool site, but it really needs a legend. I can intuit that white
| is high light pollution because its on city centers, but how bad
| is green? I have no idea what I would see there.
| ry4nolson wrote:
| I was thinking this same thing. I live in what the map has as a
| "pinkish red" area (right outside of white) and I just recently
| camped in a brown orange area (3 levels darker). The difference
| was noticeable but not a crazy amount. I really wonder how much
| darker the blue or not even colored areas are.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| I've been to a few blue and darker areas, and those are
| properly mind blowing. That said, I live in a dark green
| area, and you can see some definition to the milky way on a
| clear and dry night
| doublemint2203 wrote:
| I'll try and make this. beginner cs undergrad looking for maps-
| based things to build. if anyone can reply and hit me with
| tips, quick info, or just a laundry list of things I'd be wise
| to google & learn to use, please lmk thanks!
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Please share the prompt!!
|
| /s it is so beautiful. Really helps to understand the shape of
| humanity at a global scale. Middle East and Korea made me
| reflect.
| chmod775 wrote:
| What strikes me most is that the correlation with population is
| still weaker than expected - at least it _appears_ (eyeballing
| it) that Europe has a larger /more extreme light pollution than
| India and China combined.
|
| It also shows the lack of development of eastern Europe's rural
| areas. The contrast from one country to the next is quite strong.
| irrational wrote:
| I live in the western USA where very dark sky areas are
| abundant. After reading your comment, I was curious to see what
| Europe looked like. I was astonished that not just Europe, but
| the Eastern USA also, has no very dark sky areas at all. It is
| amazing how populated these regions are.
|
| But, then I go down to Australia and nearly the entire
| continent is great for sky gazing (other than all the critters
| trying to kill you).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm curious how the dark skies map is actually built. I assume
| it tries to make generalizations based on density of buildings.
| And that is only as accurate as the building data is in the map
| source.
|
| It's probably fairly accurate overall, but there is undoubtedly
| some region-specific things (different lighting styles, etc)
| that throw a wrench into the mix.
|
| One place out my direction has a blue blob in the middle of a
| dark gray area, so you wonder what kind of civilization is
| there. Nothing, just a few buildings that are uninhabited and
| unlit. So there's no light pollution in actuality, but dark
| skies thinks there is.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| They are based on nighttime satellite photos. The downside of
| that is its only based on the light that gets through the
| atmosphere. So a dusty/humid place will have a lot more light
| pollution than the map shows because the dust blocks the
| light from the satellite, and reflects some of that light
| towards an observer on the ground.
| underseacables wrote:
| Very cool, it would be helpful to have a key for what the colors
| mean. I can deduce that white, is little to no darkness, and
| shades of green mean dark, but it would help to give that little
| context.
| dmd wrote:
| What am I missing here? I see a dark sky map. That's it. No
| hotels or anything like that?
| bittercynic wrote:
| It's working nicely over here, but sometimes takes a long time
| to load the places, and doesn't give any indication that it's
| still working on it.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38084473
| alistairSH wrote:
| Same. I tried changing the dates and location search. All that
| happened was a recenter/zoom, but no homes were listed.
| ranting-moth wrote:
| It's broken on FF/Linux. I just flashing garbage that would
| probably trigger epilepsy if I had one.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| Another bug on FF/Android (private mode): it first showed the
| map, then overlayed a message saying I had to enter my email to
| access, but once I did it asked me to click a non-existent "Got
| it".
|
| I clicked on one of the social media buttons and immediately
| went back, and then I could see the map. No hotels, though, but
| that has been mentioned already.
| executesorder66 wrote:
| Works fine for me. I'm also using Firefox + Linux.
| ranting-moth wrote:
| You just made it a whole lot harder to find the bug! :)
| joncp wrote:
| It's goofy on FF/Mac too. Not flashing but oddly distorted.
| genezeta wrote:
| Completely psychedelic on Firefox/Win too.
| acomms wrote:
| Not getting any stays overlayed on the map. HN hug of death? API
| Limit?
| asow92 wrote:
| The perfect overlay map to find the ideal cabin in the woods. I'd
| love to be able to overlay this on Zillow or Airbnb.
| coding123 wrote:
| As long as y'all show up before dark. That's the courtesy.
| otteromkram wrote:
| Airbnb is a pile of sh!t that will screw over travelers on a
| whim. Please DO NOT PROMOTE THAT COMPANY.
|
| Use hotels. They're cleaner, cheaper, and full of amenities.
| Plus, you don't have to clean before you leave!
|
| Edit: And, before anyone downvotes me too much, think about the
| fact that Airbnb does NOT audit any stays or even verify proof of
| ownership of the property and/or the right to sublet.
|
| If you do complain, Airbnb will give you the runaround for months
| in end, perpetually pushing goalposts further down the field,
| even amid a slew of overwhelming evidence.
|
| Yes, this is empirical data I'm working off of. And, no, it
| wasn't a one-off event.
|
| Imagine all the crap sold on ebay that isn't vetted. Now, apply
| that to a vacation rental and you have the company in question.
| Kiro wrote:
| I think many people have never experienced and don't realize how
| mind-bending a clear night sky in the winter without light
| pollution is. You need to get pretty far from civilization but
| when you do you will see so many stars, colors and effects you
| had no idea were visible without a telescope. The first time I
| experienced it I couldn't believe my eyes and it redefined my
| perception of space.
| wickedsickeune wrote:
| I've never seen it myself, but I plan to. I once showed to
| colleagues a photo of what can be seen by naked eye (the milky
| way) and they would not believe me even remotely (it wasn't
| super exposed).
| the_g0d_f4ther wrote:
| It's really is an incredible experience.
| timthorn wrote:
| Also, it can be hard to navigate the sky if you're not used to
| it. The patterns of stars that you can see instantly in more
| polluted areas get a lot of "background noise" and you need to
| relearn the sky to a degree.
| progne wrote:
| How held back might science be in an alternate history with one
| change: a permanently cloudy sky. Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler,
| Galileo, Newton, Einstein, would all have had so much less
| purchase on the shape of the universe to build their theories
| on. So much science depends on the fundamental insights from
| those models.
|
| We would be a more inward focused civilization, and lesser for
| it.
| pphysch wrote:
| Civilizational development would be radically different
| without celestial navigation.
| macintux wrote:
| Your comment reminded me about one of Asimov's classics I'd
| long forgotten about: Nightfall.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_novelette_an.
| ..
| andytruett wrote:
| It reminded me of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
| trilogy's third-of-five book _Life, the Universe and
| Everything_
|
| > Krikkiters
|
| > This race of quiet, polite, charming and rather whimsical
| humanoids caused the most devastating war in the history of
| the Galaxy (with over two "grillion" casualties). Their
| homeworld, Krikkit, is surrounded by a black cloud, so they
| had no knowledge of the universe outside their world. When
| a spaceship crashed on the surface of Krikkit, the
| inhabitants quickly stripped it of its secrets and used
| them to create their own "flimsy piece of near-junk" craft,
| Krikkit One. Upon reaching the outer edge of the dust cloud
| and seeing the galaxy for the first time, the people of
| Krikkit marveled at its beauty before being gripped with
| fear of it and casually deciding to destroy it, famously
| remarking "It'll have to go." The Earth game of cricket is
| a racial memory of the events of the Krikkit Wars.
|
| via https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_races_and_s
| pecie...
| cratermoon wrote:
| Asimov also wrote _The Caves of Steel_ , set in a future
| where Humans live on Earth in completely enclosed
| underground cities. Robots farm and mine on the surface.
| twic wrote:
| A more recent echo of this is Greg Egan's Incandescence, in
| which space caterpillars discover general relativity
| without being able to see the sky:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescence_(novel)
| dfxm12 wrote:
| It's easy to understand why people looking up at this might
| consider it the work of the super natural.
| b2w wrote:
| Having lived on a Caribbean island, I can relate to this visual
| sensation. Let me only tell you further that when coupled with
| the auditory expeience of the rhythmic ocean waves washing
| against the shoreline, it amplifies the entire encounter for
| me.
| 1-more wrote:
| Orient Point on Long Island had the same thing. Kind of
| shocking given how built up the whole island is.
| nologic01 wrote:
| An added bonus of a dark sky is that with a good pair of eyes
| (and more democratically, with a set of binoculars) you can see
| all sort of clusters, nebulae, Jupiter's moons and e.g.,
| Andromeda.
|
| While not as breathtaking as the panoramic view of a truly dark
| sky, experiencing this "micro-structure" is also a mind-
| expanding experience: The sky is no longer a set of random
| point sources. Its an organic "thing" enclosing other "things".
| marssaxman wrote:
| I once got to watch the sunset from the peak of Mauna Kea.
| After descending to a less stressful altitude, we spent some
| time stargazing. I've never seen the sky like that before, or
| since; it felt like you could see the depth in the galaxy. I
| was no longer looking up at the dome of the sky, studded with
| stars; I was looking out, from the side of a planet, into the
| wide open space of the universe.
| invalidptr wrote:
| I had the same experience at around 10,000 ft in the
| cascades. Once you're above the thickest part of the
| atmosphere, a whole new dimension opens up in the sky.
| Everywhere you look, in the space between the stars, there
| are more stars, infinitely receding to the edge of the
| universe. The sky starts to look more like a fractal than a
| few points of light scattered around.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| At 18,000 feet altitude on the Thorong La Pass in the
| Nepali Himalayas in 1984, there were more stars than
| darkness in between them.
| enobrev wrote:
| I had planned a trip to the Haleakala Crater in Maui for
| the highly-recommended sunrise, and our airBnb turned out
| to have a pretty significant ant problem, so we ended up
| going a few hours early.
|
| I don't know why anyone would even mention the sunrise
| considering how incredible that night sky was. The
| experience was similar to seeing the grand canyon: too big,
| beautiful, and intricate for my brain to take it all in. It
| was absolutely breathtaking. Also, absurdly cold (we were
| well prepared and it was still not enough)
|
| The sunrise was fine. Very pretty, to be sure. But the main
| event was that night sky, for which I would have shown up a
| few hours earlier than I did had I known about it.
| stevage wrote:
| Agreed with you on this. I have never yet seen a sunrise
| that was worth the effort. But a good night sky is
| incredible.
|
| My best was at about 3500m in Peru, in the wee hours
| after fleeing my tent to be sick. Absolutely mind blowing
| to see the whole milky way like that.
| Yhippa wrote:
| It sounds like to get these experiences I'm going to have
| to go far out of my way and pay a lot of money. Our ancient
| ancestors got it for free, and I wonder if they thought
| anything of it.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Our ancient ancestors got it for free, and I wonder if
| they thought anything of it.
|
| Not sure what they thought of it, but I think it's
| telling how aware they were of the night sky as an active
| environment, e.g. the movements of the planets, and the
| relationships between events in the sky and our seasons
| (even though the their explanatory models were wrong).
|
| On a clear night - especially in winter - before the
| invention of fire, it's all you'd be aware of. No wonder
| that they made patterns (constellations) of the brighter
| stars.
| nologic01 wrote:
| We probably owe the roots of all science (and thus
| technology) to the clear dark sky observations of ancient
| ancestors. Astronomical observatories were common in all
| early civilizations and it there where some of the roots
| of mathematical thinking begin (the other being credit
| accounting tools :-)
|
| Astronomical observations are in a sense simpler and
| cleaner (and until the invention of accurate timepieces,
| compasses etc.) also of extreme practical use.
|
| The reason is likely that our normal down-to-Earth
| environment is too complex and chaotic to be parsed.
| Observation of nearby processes gets things wrong because
| of overlapping effects. E.g. Aristotle thought that the
| natural state is for things to stop moving when they stop
| being pushed by a force. This is only the case because
| down here friction is dominant.
|
| > have to go far out of my way and pay a lot of money
|
| it should not be like this. A lot of light pollution is
| due to just not giving a damn about side-effects.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Sure, they didn't have to pay with money, past a certain
| point they didn't even use money, but they paid with
| (much) shorter lives. Money is just the cost of self-
| determination.
|
| But if you just want to get somewhere on top of a
| mountain with no light pollution, you don't have to spend
| very much money, unless you happen to live in an area of
| the world with no mountains.
| rando_dfad wrote:
| > Sure, they didn't have to pay with money, past a
| certain point they didn't even use money, but they paid
| with (much) shorter lives. Money is just the cost of
| self-determination.
|
| the cost of a clear night sky does not have to be "no
| technology". We don't need nearly as many streetlights,
| lighted signs, houselights, etc as we have.
|
| I've lived in areas where regulation restricts lighting
| choices; it is a good thing.
|
| Excess lighting is called light pollution, and it is a
| societal choice to put up with it. Society can choose
| otherwise and help us rediscover our wonder at the world.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Far out of your way depending on where you live, sure,
| but not necessarily pay a lot of money.
|
| Like I got to see the Milky Way up in the Porcupine
| Mountains a couple of years ago in Northern Michigan, off
| the shore of Lake Superior, while my wife was hunting for
| Yooperlites (rocks that glow under a UV light) on the
| beach late at night. Other than an 8 hour drive's worth
| of gas and a fairly inexpensive AirBnb it didn't cost
| anything extra to see it.
|
| And you can always move to one of these places, too, and
| see it all the time. Solidly middle class homes up there
| can be had for about $200k in small towns/cities, then
| you only need to drive about 15 minutes to get out of
| town to see it.
|
| And if you're in the western US, it looks like there's a
| lot more options. Much darker in general out there
| outside the major cities.
|
| I do miss when you could see these things just outside of
| town in Illinois though. Used to drive just a bit outside
| of town and park on the side of a rural road and just
| look up and see it, when I was a kid/teen. There's almost
| no place in Illinois where you can see the Milky Way
| nowadays (and where I live now it's gray-white on the
| map, so I only see a few pin points in the sky right now,
| it's terrible).
| projektfu wrote:
| The Milky Way is visible most nights (except when cloudy)
| on St. George Island, Florida, about 60 minutes from
| Tallahassee or 6.5 hours drive from Atlanta. It's
| stunning. Most nights I saw meteors as well. However, the
| northern sky is a little obstructed by trees.
|
| White Sands National Monument in New Mexico has
| incredible views of the stars.
|
| I saw beautiful stars canoeing on a lake in the
| Adirondack mountains.
|
| I once saw comet Hyakutake by accident when I was riding
| in the back of a van on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I
| think it was around the Fort Littleton exit.
|
| I suppose it depends on your starting point how expensive
| it is to see the stars. However, I agree that there is
| just too much artificial light. I get that we feel much
| safer and less bored, but there's something lost by not
| having the easy access to the night sky.
| midasuni wrote:
| Having a warm dark sky is not to be underestimated. I
| don't have great darkness where I live but it's certainly
| enough to pick out a fair few sights
|
| The problem is a clear night tends to be rare, and in
| winter when it's 5C outside.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| If you live in the northeast of the US, Medawisla is a
| fantastic "dark sky park" located in Maine. Unforgettable
| experience, highest possible reccomendation.
| rando_dfad wrote:
| They thought about it a lot, that's the origin of
| astronomy and math.
| divbzero wrote:
| I've seen Jupiter's moons using binoculars in the middle of
| the city without a dark sky. TIL it's possible in some cases
| to spot them by naked eye.
| louthy wrote:
| My best experience of this was at Mt. Everest base-camp (Tibet
| side) at 5,364 metres (17,598 ft)
|
| Not just no light pollution, but much less atmosphere too! It
| looked like those long exposure images of the Milky Way. There
| aren't words available to describe how incredible it was. I'll
| just state that it was one of the highlights of my life!
| ruined wrote:
| i think one of the greatest crimes of the modern world is light
| pollution. it has completely redefined nearly everyone's
| perception of the universe and themselves in a really tragic
| way.
|
| we would all be better off with fewer lights on buildings, and
| fewer streetlights. there is no reason for most of them, and
| the cost is existentially incredible.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Well, that depends. In general, there's no need for street
| lights to be on when there's no traffic. But I grew up
| traveling throughout my country from rural to main capital
| and there was always an area of the highway without street
| lights. That area was noticeably more dangerous because you
| simply see less, and have less reaction time. Especially
| during rain or snow or other extreme weather. It isn't just
| other cars. It is also deer who might pass the highway, for
| example. And that area was in a forest. If there were some
| kind of way to have them more intelligently work on/off (for
| example by seeing phone signals come closer) I'd wager we'd
| already have such. I actually dislike that premise and would
| like to agree with you (selfishly: I'd like my kids to grow
| up on a livable planet), so I hope you can prove me wrong.
| switchbak wrote:
| There was a Cadillac from 2000 that had night vision in a
| HUD style design [1]. That never caught on, but there's no
| reason we couldn't have a really great implementation of
| that now.
|
| I don't know if an IR emmitter would be reasonable, but
| that could augment the headlights to provide some really
| good visibility even without street lights.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIR_LzriXYE
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Larger Audis have night vision as an option:
| https://www.audi-technology-portal.de/en/electrics-
| electroni...
| bch wrote:
| Ironic how, in a way, light keeps us from being illuminated.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _there is no reason for most of them_
|
| Yes there is, it's crime. Street lights deter crime.
|
| Also simply driving safety. Driving with just headlights
| causes more accidents than on a well-lit street, since
| visibility is so much worse.
|
| I love to see the night sky as well, but I don't want to
| pretend there aren't extremely good reasons for street
| lighting, and those reasons aren't going away.
|
| That being said, are there ways to reduce outdoor lighting of
| giant industrial parking lots, of stadiums at 3 am, or whole
| floors of skyscrapers when 99% of people have gone home?
| Sure. But at the same time, reducing nighttime lighting by
| 50% isn't really going to make any difference in sky
| visibility. It's more about not wasting electricity.
|
| I'm talking mostly about urban areas though -- in rural areas
| where there's already a decent amount of visibility and the
| population is small enough that most roads already don't have
| street lights, then regulation can actually make a
| difference, e.g. banning always-on floodlights on people's
| driveways.
| sgu999 wrote:
| Regarding crime and driving safety, it does seem like a
| suboptimal solution that may even trigger some Jevons
| paradox. Are drivers going faster because it's well lit?
| Will people be less prudent when walking through it alone?
| etc.
|
| On the good side of the spectrum, I've never experienced a
| city as dark as Tokyo at night, which is also one of the
| safest on both accounts...
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Will people be less prudent when walking through it
| alone?_
|
| So you're blaming _victims_ for being mugged -- or worse?
| Because they weren 't "prudent" enough?
|
| Rather than realizing that dark areas create
| opportunities for criminals where they won't be
| recognized, or caught on camera, and where they can
| escape without people spotting them?
|
| The lower rates of crime in Japan are due to cultural
| factors. And lighting doesn't change cultural factors.
| sgu999 wrote:
| > So you're blaming victims for being mugged -- or worse?
| Because they weren't "prudent" enough?
|
| Of course not, I am merely pointing the fact that the
| feeling of safety may not be actual safety. Changing the
| environment alters the behaviour of criminals _and_
| potential victims.
|
| You also ignored that in the same sentence I blamed
| perpetrators: imprudent drivers.
|
| > The lower rates of crime in Japan are due to cultural
| factors. And lighting doesn't change cultural factors.
|
| That's basically where I was going with this.
|
| As if the Japanese had always been tidy, the Dutch always
| fervent cyclists, the Italians smug about their food
| quality, etc. Culture shifts.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| Ironically, LED lighting, which is much more
| environmentally friendly, will make light pollution worse
| because of its frequency (blueish, which gets scattered by
| the atmosphere) and because it is cheaper to leave on at
| night.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| LEDs can do oranges/reds just fine, it is just that blues
| are cheaper for interesting historic reasons (and people
| just love blue). LEDs can do better reds than anything
| that used to be used for outdoor lighting and there's
| some hope that LED lighting could help red shift outdoor
| lighting, eventually. (The redder it is, the less it
| interferes with night vision the less overall light needs
| to be spilled to seem as bright.)
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the counterpoint is that LEDs allow for much better
| distribution of light which can dramatically decrease the
| amount of light pointing up
| floatrock wrote:
| > Street lights deter crime.
|
| Kinda, sometimes. But this field is also fraught with tons
| of "bad implementations of a good idea", making the problem
| worse, as well as intuitions that don't hold up to
| empirical studies.
|
| Classic example is a neighborhood adds extra bright
| streetlamps and neighbors install extra-bright flood lights
| on their garages. This illuminates some areas, but the
| areas that are missed become even "darker" because the
| extra light in people's eyes ruins night vision. Hiding in
| the bushes with your black thieving skimask (or along the
| fence line, or just off the road) becomes even more
| effective, and everyone else just gets a bright streetlight
| shining into their bedroom window all night long.
|
| There's a whole subculture of designers talking about what
| makes effective street lighting, but it basically comes
| down to less blue light aimed more downwards.
|
| And the best crime deterrent is having a lively
| neighborhood with more eyes on the street in the Jacobs-ey
| fashion. I heard of one crime study that considered
| lighting and cameras and all those things but found the
| best predictor of low crime rates was how many dogs lived
| in the neighborhood (and therefore people outside walking
| their dogs).
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| It is a chicken and egg problem as people won't walk
| their dogs outside as much in an unsafe area
| soulofmischief wrote:
| It's even worse; many cities have opted for blue, narrow-
| band LED street lighting in recent years which is
| actually missing so much from the color spectrum that
| your vision operates _worse_ within the lit areas, and it
| gets harder to detect boundaries between objects and
| motion. Not to mention it screws with peoples ' circadian
| rhythms.
|
| What we have is a situation where our city, state and
| federal governments know _jack shit_ about the science
| behind proper lighting or why it 's so important for both
| people and wildlife to get high-quality, whole-spectrum,
| 10-25KHz+ PWM lighting.
|
| And contractors take advantage of this, charging
| exorbitant amounts of money for intentionally sub-par
| lighting systems. It's a crime against both nature and
| humanity.
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/led-streetlights-are-giving-
| neighb...
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| > There's a whole subculture of designers talking about
| what makes effective street lighting, but it basically
| comes down to less blue light aimed more downwards.
|
| Considering the context of crime prevention, it is rather
| ironic therefore that police stations traditionally have
| none other than blue lamps above their doors!
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| Or safety in general.
|
| I don't want to walk in dark even if there is literally no
| other person.
| cratermoon wrote:
| You might be surprised how much your eyes can adjust to
| see if there are truly no other lights. Often in urban
| areas what we see as "dark" is really our eyes unable to
| see details the unlit areas because of stray light from
| streetlamps. In a dark rural area, a full moon is plenty
| bright. Thus the "harvest moon"
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _In a dark rural area, a full moon is plenty bright._
|
| I completely agree. _But_ , it's very rarely a full moon.
|
| When there's no moon at all, which is literally _half the
| time_ , you might be surprised at how _pitch black_ it is
| at night. Or just, you know, when there 's heavy clouds.
| hoosieree wrote:
| > Street lights deter crime.
|
| Lighting affects property crime more than violent crime. It
| also depends on where the lights are, both in terms of
| neighborhood[1] and country[2].
|
| On the other hand, lights dramatically affect how safe
| people _feel_ [3] in an area, even if that feeling is not
| necessarily based on actual danger.
|
| [1]: https://doi.org/10.3386/W25798
|
| [2]: https://doi.org/10.1111/J.1745-9133.2004.TB00058.X
|
| [3]: https://doi.org/10.1016/0169-2046(96)00311-8
| rando_dfad wrote:
| > Yes there is, it's crime. Street lights deter crime.
|
| > Also simply driving safety. Driving with just headlights
| causes more accidents than on a well-lit street, since
| visibility is so much worse.
|
| Accepting your points for convenience, wouldn't we get the
| same benefits with lights that only pointed downward? And
| if you further restrict to warmer colors (which interfere
| less with low-light sensitivity, also less diffraction
| reducing light pollution), with a sensible but low max
| intensity (again keeping the human eye more dark-sensitive,
| allowing better visibility into the non-illuminated
| spaces)?
|
| Reducing nighttime lighting by 50% would make a huge
| difference in sky visibility.
| alexb_ wrote:
| There's a lot of streetlamps that switched to early
| versions of LED bulbs that start glowing purple as they
| age. I've actually really come to like the purple color
| illuminating streets, it's much easier on the eyes than
| the bright white.
| switchbak wrote:
| Greatest crimes? Dumping PFAS and mercury into our ecosystem?
| Sure. Acid rain? Yeah. Bright cities? I think there's a long
| list of 'crimes' I'd put before that, and I love the night
| sky.
|
| Some of these things won't be gone for generations or more,
| whereas you can turn lights off pretty easily. Ideally we'll
| swap out the older designs of streetlights and such as better
| designs become prevalent and there's economic incentives to
| do so.
| takinola wrote:
| The first time I saw the Milky Way with my bare eyes, I almost
| fell over. The sky looked like static from an old TV set. There
| were so many stars, it was overwhelming.
| mynegation wrote:
| I grew up in a small town and my wife grew up in big cities. On
| our trip to Morocco we were on a camping trip to a desert and
| she asked me looking at the night sky: "What is this huge white
| thing across the sky?". Took me a while to realize that she was
| asking about Milky Way.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| What's special about the winter? My great-grandparents on my
| dad's side lived in the California high desert, maybe 50 miles
| or so from Edward's Air Force Base, when I was a kid and we
| visited every year for Independence Day. A week and a half
| after the summer solstice and I've still never seen more stars
| or more of the Milky Way outer rim than I did back then.
| martyvis wrote:
| Humidity. Above a desert you won't have much moisture in the
| air in summer.
| malux85 wrote:
| Me too, I was on Formentera, which is an island off the east
| coast of Spain, just below Ibiza.
|
| It's a small Island, only accessible by boat. One summer
| evening I went for a walk along the beach with my partner and
| we stood there in the clear night - with no light pollution,
| with the whole milky way above us. There were thousands and
| thousands of stars I had never seen before in a giant array
| that stretched across the whole sky. Subtle colours and
| brightness differences gave the milky way a structure and
| randomness at the same time, it was an incredibly beautiful and
| humbling experience, and changed my perspective of the universe
| too.
| gavinhoward wrote:
| As someone who grew up in a place without light pollution, I
| had this wonder every night. And I miss it.
|
| Growing up, I never even thought that people would not know
| what it's like; it was always just a part of my life.
|
| Now I live in a city...it sucks...
| freetime2 wrote:
| Another important thing is to give your eyes time to fully
| adapt to darkness. In my experience this can take hours. The
| best stargazing experiences I've had have been camping under
| the open sky without a tent, where I would awake in my sleeping
| bag in the middle of the night and just be absolutely amazed at
| the stars above me.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| My town (Dripping Springs, TX) was pretty dark when I moved here
| 10 years ago. We could at least see the Milky Way back then.
|
| Today it claims to be a dark sky certified community, but this
| seems baloney. No more Milky Way. And while the town claims to
| have all those regulations to protect the dark, they start right
| off by ignoring those rules for the schools' football fields and
| stuff.
| jmbwell wrote:
| Yeah when I lived in San Antonio, we used to go out to Hondo to
| see the milky way and explore the skies with our homemade
| telescopes.
|
| LOL today
| ModernMech wrote:
| Doesn't seem to work. Just asks for my email address and won't
| even accept one when I put it in.
| doublemint2203 wrote:
| I'll try and make this. beginner cs undergrad looking for maps-
| based things to build. if anyone can reply and hit me with
| tips, quick info, or just a laundry list of things I'd be wise
| to google & learn to use, please lmk thanks!
| mstudio wrote:
| Great visualization! For those in the Northeast US, Cherry
| Springs State Park in PA is a wonderful place to visit for night
| viewing (and camping). It's one of the best places (darkest night
| sky) on the eastern seaboard for stargazing. We camped there in
| the summer and saw the Milky Way like I'd never seen before. Be
| sure to look at the moon phases when planning -- try to plan for
| a new moon so you have a dark sky:
| https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/StateParks/FindAPark/CherrySpringsSt...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The eastern desert ranges of California are great for seeing a
| clear night sky (Panamint Valley etc.). There's even a Dark Sky
| Festival out there (Nov 9-12 2023). Shows up nicely on this map
| too.
|
| https://www.easternsierraobservatory.com/california-dark-sky...
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Feature request: Any chance of a "back in time" slider? I'm going
| camping this weekend for a bike race in Utah. Even there I don't
| recall being impressed by the stars there, compared to my
| childhood in Kansas, where I could see the Milky Way from my
| front yard. It would be interesting to compare this to what it
| looked like 30 years ago.
| momirlan wrote:
| there is apparently a huge difference between the night sky in
| the Northern vs Southern hemisphere. whoever spent their life in
| the North has no idea how beautiful the Southern sky is.
| alkonaut wrote:
| What on earth is going on in Narpes in coastal/rural Finland? It
| looks like it has extreme light pollution?
| tpmx wrote:
| Greenhouses, apparently. Try Google Translate on
| https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-1355536.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Needs labels for the light pollution scale, it's not immediately
| obvious.
|
| A grayscale mode would be even better (thought less pretty at
| first sight).
| Dave3of5 wrote:
| Totally lost on the UI sorry can you explain how to operate the
| thing ?
| Mortiffer wrote:
| This is very cool. I have been working on a way to get a hestmap
| of distance from roads to plan Backcountry hiking trips but this
| light pollution data seems much simpler.
| namuol wrote:
| "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who
| cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who
| cannot.
|
| Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until
| progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question of
| whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in
| things natural, wild, and free. For us of the minority, the
| opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and
| the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as
| free speech."
|
| - Foreword to A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, 1949
| jackconsidine wrote:
| Aldo Leopold was a genius. His love for nature was poetic and
| inspiring. He also offered a pragmatic ethic of the land. I'm
| not sure I've ever read someone as holistic and well-
| intentioned.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| I stayed in shelter cove recently to see the perseid meteor
| shower. Definitely recommend staying in a similar remote area
| with low light pollution.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| This is wonderful!
|
| One suggestion is to also include probability of cloud-cover at
| that time of the year.
| badcppdev wrote:
| As a UK resident I sadly have to agree
| rconti wrote:
| Nothing against the site, I just hate this usage of "stays".
| emadda wrote:
| Related: I released an AirBnB search engine optimised for desktop
| a few months ago.
|
| https://stay100.app
| doublemint2203 wrote:
| Hey how'd you import the maps? I'm beginner cs/geospatial
| undergrad & looking to build something like this
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| Majority of Texas has no data when you zoom in:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/cFYZ5pQ.png
| cratermoon wrote:
| I like how the map shows the lights from drilling platforms out
| in places like the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea.
| tomatoman wrote:
| Whats going on in Venezuela in Maturin??
| blamazon wrote:
| It's petroleum industry[1] in the Orinoco Belt[2], ignition of
| waste gas[3] produces a lot of light.
|
| [1] https://energy-
| cg.com/OPEC/Venezuela/OPEC_Venezuela_BaseMap_...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orinoco_Belt
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_flare
| grogenaut wrote:
| some feedback:
|
| - a legend of the colors would be great, explaining in words what
| they mean, what I might expect - date range search is a bit odd
| for this, I guess if I was aligning with astronomical events, but
| if I'm just looking for nice places to stay. - Mine defaults to
| my location, seattle. I've seen 3 total astronimical events here
| in 13 years due to clouds.
| etothepii wrote:
| This website is unusable in iPhone 14 Pro Max in Safari.
|
| Would be interested in something similar for the 8th April
| Eclipse.
| 97s wrote:
| I am confused how do I see the places I can stay?
| petee wrote:
| The Track Prices button hovers over the calender so you can't
| change the month. Otherwise pretty cool!
| HomeDeLaPot wrote:
| Typo in the title: overlayed -> overlaid
| jmuguy wrote:
| Maybe doesn't work in Firefox? I just see a map with what I guess
| is light pollution overlaid but no hotels.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Same on Chrome.
| louison11 wrote:
| This should be fixed now. The HN traffic was way above the rate
| limit allowed by our data provider API. Hence the downtime in
| our AJAX requests and the reason why you didn't see any hotels
| loading up. It may still be on and off at the moment (there are
| hundreds of people active at all times), but if you move the
| map around a little your AJAX request should eventually "get
| in" ;-)
| rmason wrote:
| The Michigan tourism folks have become focused on dark sky
| tourism. Here's a website that tells you the best parks in the
| state for sky gazing.
|
| https://www.michigan.org/darksky
| pcrh wrote:
| One thing that is interesting about this is how one may not need
| to travel to some far and remote place to experience low light
| pollution.
|
| In the map of the UK, for example, low light pollution can be
| experienced within a 2 hr train ride from London to Wales, Devon
| or Cornwall. Similarly for France or Spain.
|
| Central Europe and Eastern US has little such luck, though.
| timeinput wrote:
| I apparently live in a pretty low light pollution area in the
| UK, but it's been a while since I've seen the stars because of
| clouds =[.
| davidw wrote:
| Simpler method: just go visit central and SE Oregon.
|
| * Maybe fly in to Bend. Nearby you can go up Pine Mountain to
| visit the observatory in the summer. Best views of the sky I've
| ever had... you're up at around 2000 meters, away from the city,
| with clear air, usually. You can very easily see the milky way
| and SO many stars.
|
| * https://traveloregon.com/plan-your-trip/destinations/lakes-r...
| - dark sky park near Prineville.
|
| * Steens Mountain & Alvord Desert -
| https://traveloregon.com/things-to-do/destinations/parks-for...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Nice idea, but it didn't work great for me. It mostly finds
| hotels in heavily light polluted areas. And in the tiny out-of-
| the way places where light pollution is minimal, it didn't show
| me any lodging options. But going to Google maps for the same
| spots, there are definitely options.
| stevage wrote:
| It's a shame the site is not really usable on mobile.
| shmageggy wrote:
| Slightly off-topic, but I wonder what the big circle of light
| pollution is in Western Brazil, west-southwest of Manaus? It
| looks like it's centered over Urucu, which Google reveals is home
| to a natural gas pipeline. I wonder if there was a fire there or
| something when the satellite passed?
| leonheld wrote:
| No major accidents ever as far as I can Google (I speak
| Portuguese, so I searched the local web).
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