When I was a kid I loved star gazing. My brothers and I would take a telescope into the backyard and spend hours looking into the night sky. Currently I take some time most evenings to meditate outside. I've noticed that there aren't as many stars as there were in my youth and what is there are not as bright. Now, my eyeballs are 45 years older but I don't think that's it. There is a not-at-all-subtle glow on the horizon (San Diego City) that was not there when I was young. The visual noise of urban lights are obscuring nature's glory and we are all the worse for that.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Not So Starry Nights Now Adays
When I was a kid I loved star gazing. My brothers and I would take a telescope into the backyard and spend hours looking into the night sky. Currently I take some time most evenings to meditate outside. I've noticed that there aren't as many stars as there were in my youth and what is there are not as bright. Now, my eyeballs are 45 years older but I don't think that's it. There is a not-at-all-subtle glow on the horizon (San Diego City) that was not there when I was young. The visual noise of urban lights are obscuring nature's glory and we are all the worse for that.
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For more information, here is an International Dark Sky Association.
http://www.darksky.org/
Turns out that the lighting that preserves dark skies, or allows their return, is better than the glaring sodium vapor lights, better meaning more effective and cheaper to operate.
Of course, the light scattering from the haze caused by hundreds of thousands of motor vehicles and their exhaust, is another problem.
But, that will disappear in due course -- when the oil economy ends.
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