photo: First Solar

Source

A group of six developers — ABCDW LLC, Torrey Pines Development LLC, Riggs/Queen Creek 480 LLC, Ellsworth Road 160 LLC and Vanderbilt Farms LLC — represented by Rose Law Group PC is bringing the proposed plant to the commission for a series of approvals, including changes in zoning allowances and the county’s general approval of the development.

By today’s standards, the 40-megawatt facility would be the largest in North America and eighth-largest worldwide in terms of total megawatt capacity, although several larger projects, including a giant 5,000-megawatt farm in central California, have been proposed both stateside and around the globe. A 2,000-megawatt facility is slated for completion in the Mongolian desert in China by 2019, with Tempe-based First Solar holding that production contract.

Florence, Arizona.

According to the 2006 US Census Bureau’s estimates, the sunniest cities with over 440,000 people in the United States are as follows:
1. Phoenix, AZ – 85% (% sunshine) – 211 (clear days)
2. Las Vegas, NV – 85% – 210
3. Tucson, AZ – 85% – 193
4. El Paso, TX – 84% -193

As of last year, Arcadia, Florida built the largest solar power plant in the nation at 25-megawatt. The 40-megawatt solar power plant in Florence, Arizona would be able to power an estimated 30,000 – 40,000 homes. Now that a context has been established, it makes logical sense to build solar power plants in regions where it’s the sunniest. Sure the initial cost may deter investors away, but consider the passive yet active application of solar. Passive, in that the panels soak up solar energy without moving. One does not have to harvest energy via digging, drilling, etc. Active in that solar energy powers homes with electricity. These are indeed exciting times we live in.

Let there be night!

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE STARS: Students enjoy a glimpse of the stars atop the roof of Physical Science Center C-Wing during the monthly Astronomy Open House at ASU. Telescopes were provided for onlookers to enjoy the wonders of the stormy winter sky. (Photo by Michael Arellano)

Source

“The Astronomy Open House is basically a public outreach opportunity. We try to get families to come because we want to educate the young people and try to bring them in. If we could have a nice dark area to hold this, then it would be way cooler because you could see a lot more stuff.” – Teresa Ashcraft, an astrophysics doctoral candidate

Every month, ASU hosts a monthly Astronomy Open House, where the public may inquire, gaze and learn about the solar system. In fact, expect to see Mars now and Saturn later this month through their telescopes. In addition, the Astronomy Open House shows its collect of meteorite and rock samples to participants as well as free physical science lectures. Leon Manfredi, an earth and space exploration senior, spoke about volcanoes “in the solar system, including those on Earth, Mars and Venus.” Even though the skies were cloudy for February’s meeting, participants were able to see some spectacular views of the winter sky.

Free astronomy open houses, star parties and lectures – this is what it’s all about. Here, one can find experts on the subject and find these events both equally enjoyable and informative. If you haven’t gone to any of the aforementioned activities, I’d highly recommend them. It’s free entertainment where you might actually learn something, regardless of age. Being able to see the rings of Saturn through a telescope is truly a humbling experience – one can begin to understand how incredibly small the Earth is in relation to the universe.

The next Astronomy Open House will start on March 26, 2010 at 8-10 pm. It’s location on the Tempe Campus, Physical Sciences Building H-wing 5th floor.

The brightest asteroid Vesta reaches opposition this week right next to the beautiful double star Algieba. Credit: Starry Night® Software

Source

“Vesta is the second largest asteroid, after Ceres, and by far the brightest, having a greater albedo (percentage of light reflected) than any other asteroid. This seems to be partly the result of a collision with another asteroid about a billion years ago. Its mean diameter is 329 miles (529 km), but it is rather irregular in shape because of its violent history.

This week Vesta will be traveling rapidly through Leo. It will be around magnitude 6.2, bright enough to be easily visible in binoculars. However, because of its small diameter and distance, it will appear as a star-like point of light except in the very largest telescopes.”

Pull out the binoculars for the next week!

Asteroid Vesta will reach peak opposition (optimal viewing time) in the constellation Leo tonight and remain visible for a week. Given its magnitude, viewers will be able to see the asteroid with the aid of binoculars in more light polluted skies. For those fortunate enough to have dark skies, the asteroid could very be seen with just the naked eye. Specifically, viewers can spot Vesta in the Leo constellation, about six degrees north-east, in the low eastern sky. Here is a animation and an additional picture to help you find Leo the Lion constellation:

Animation and Image source: admin from zodiac-signs.org

If you miss out on this event, fear not. Vesta makes a rather semi regular appearance roughly every 17 months.

Image source: Astronomy.com

‘Light Pollution‘
Uploaded on January 27, 2008
by Cestomano on flickr

Article source

“Most people in urban areas have never seen the Milky Way. I had a jaw-dropping event with one of my classes. I had a woman come up to me after the classes and say ‘Would you show my daughter a star?’” – James Roe of Wentzville, the head of the Alliance for Astronomy, who teaches a class in observing at St. Charles Community College.

Enter Missouri. A state with a modest population of 5 million. As time as passed, some of its residents have begin to wonder if they’re losing a significant natural resource. The resource being dark, starry nights. Naturally, these residents have gone forward to the legislature to take action. As of now, the legislature has gone forward to the Department of Natural Resources, where it will convene and form a special commission “to study the impact of Light Pollution”>light pollution on public health, energy consumption, tourism, natural resources, and wildlife.” This is terrific news for dark sky enthusiasts in Missouri and the world. Each small step towards public education in light pollution, is one step closer to understanding and eliminating light pollution.

People do seek darkness at night. In fact:

“A spokesman for the International Dark Skies Association says people apparently seek darkness. He points to a Pennsylvania state park with a dark skies designation where attendance has increased 30 percent in three years.”

Together, we can put an end to light pollution!

NASA

North America from Space; NASA

Source

Maps of brightness illustrate light pollution and energy waste. The blazing lights our satellites photograph while whizzing above us in their orbits, well, that’s light that’s serving no useful purpose (unless you want to think of our glowing cities as a form of art meant for distant eyes). Light seen from space is bouncing off illuminated surfaces, or being shone directly from bulbs aimed up. Neither is helping us on the ground [to] see our cities better. – Alex Steffen

From the pictures above, it’s palpable that the African countries lack an illuminated sky compared to their more industrialized counterparts. Whilst most of Africa remains underdeveloped by industrial Western standards, Africa leads the world in the population density per wasted lumens. Have we, as industrial civilizations, truly progressed or have we truly regressed? Have we lost so fundamentally human that we’ve lost ourselves? I imagine residents of many African nations can enjoy pristine night skies, yet at what cost? Political instability? Social unrest? Famine? Genocide? Nonetheless, Africa is something to think about. Africa has untainted night skies, something even industrialized nations across the globe do not possess. I wonder, if all nations around the globe eliminated light pollution today, how the world would be for the future? Ubiquitously, there would be tremendous Energy savings. This could translate into increased environmental, educational and health funds. Everyone, from children to the elderly, could enjoy the heavens above. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking on my part, I’ll admit, but once you’ve seen a pristine night sky, you yearn for its return. Developed nations have and have had the technology to eradicate light pollution forever. Yet developed nations continue to use dated, inefficient means to achieve a bright, undesired end.

Image source: Flickr shor, uploaded on February 1, 2008 by seen_it_

Article source

“There is a role — and savings — for individuals as well. When retrofitting, purchase fully shielded lights. Install motion detectors. When swapping out lights (such as to CFLs), energy efficiency isn’t the only consideration. If it were, you’d merely be highly efficient with your ongoing light pollution.

Instead, consider lessening the light output, or lumens, of your new light bulbs. (Comparing lumens on the box of light bulbs is like comparing grams of sugar on the sides of cereal boxes.) Aim your lights down. Or simply turn them off.

Four hundred years ago, Galileo peered into the darkness as others had not. Equally important, he did something about it. That’s where we are today. Like Galileo, we have looked up at night and have seen that something is amiss. Now we need to change our way of thinking, for the old way of lighting up the night sky indiscriminately no longer works. Much is at risk.”

Consider the following hypothetical thought experiment:

The year is 2060. Light pollution is still considered a non-issue. Current lighting trends from 2010 have continued to brighten our streets, roadways and cities. Light pollution has engulfed the sky. Day and Night are no longer mutually exclusive. For those who have seen the stars, we now represent the elderly population. Several generations of children have grown up and for many of them, they’ve never seen the night sky and have only heard stories or old photographs of such a sight. Turtle and nocturnal creature populations have declined to severely critical levels or have become extinct. It’s possible a cure for breast cancer may of been found, but one of its catalysts remains. Our bodies yearn for darkness, to help align our circadian rhythm once again.

Now it’s time to separate fact from fiction.

Facts:

Light pollution adversely affects all creatures with circadian rhythms.

Light pollution is 100% irreversible.

Light pollution will engulf the sky if action is not taken.

Take action for your lighting needs. Tell your city council members, senators and leaders about your light pollution plight and let them know that light pollution is a real blight to everyone. Lets have darker skies!

Heavens above: great conditions for night-time observations
Image Credit: telegraph.co.uk

Source

“We can make the whole family feel like Galileo. When you can see the planets in detail with your own eyes, it makes you ask questions as to how big they really are, how the solar system was formed and how to peer beyond our own Milky Way to the galaxies beyond. We can also help you find and recognise different constellations, planets, nebulae and star clusters that you never even knew existed.” – Carmelo, who runs AstroTour Isla Bonita

Situated off the northwest coast of Africa, the island La Palma, in the Spanish Canary Islands, attracts visitors from around the world because of its astro-tourism. Much of La Palma’s geography is high altitude mountains, untainted by light pollution. In fact, it is home to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, where much of the telescopes are optical and infrared, and offers the second clearest skies in the northern hemisphere, rivaled by the best, the Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. The Roque de los Muchachos Observatory is situated at 7,860 feet above sea level, where it rests above the cloud line.

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory.
Credit: Nik Szymanek (ING), IAC, ENO

Much of the success of La Palma and the other Canary Island observatories lies in their urban planning policies. Settlements on the island must follow strict lighting guidelines in order to prevent light pollution from obscuring the night sky. Aside from being a warm climate year round for travelers primarily from Europe, the Spanish Canary Islands have carved a niche for themselves with astro-tourism.

Credits for the images

Source

Can you see the difference? Whilst most individuals may not have a floodlight, the fact remains: unshielded lights waste energy and contribute to light pollution. As population trends continue to rise, it’s inevitable energy consumption will also continue to rise. Expanded population growth will expand the size of towns, cities and metropolises, as well as their general city infrastructure. Presently, the majority of towns, cities and metropolises use 40 year old lighting technologies to light their homes, sidewalks and expressways. Who is this infamous light? Enter high pressured sodium lighting. These unshielded lights emit quite a bit of heat, require high wattage lamps to illuminate the ground and remain woefully inefficient. From an infrastructure standpoint, these lamps have a horrific longevity to energy efficiency ratio yet no alternative ’seems’ to exist. The solution is shielding. When a light is shielded, it directs the light downward, where it’s needed. With the direction of the light in its proper place, one does not require the same watt light lamp found in a high pressured sodium lamp. The reason? High pressure sodium lamps require high wattage lamps to compensate for the loss of light into the heavens or otherwise known as ‘light trespass’ – see figure above. Shielded lighting eliminates that inefficiency and allows for more energy efficient and lower wattage bulbs or lamps to do the ’same’ job. All of these benefits translate into, from an infrastructure perspective, thousands or perhaps millions of dollars in energy savings depending on the size of the settlement. From a human perspective, the benefits of shielded lighting translates into a triumphant return of the night sky. Light pollution is a serious scourge on human and animal health and life. We have the technology to completely, 100%, no ifs or buts, eradicate light pollution entirely. The question lies in if we have the courage, determination and patience to fix it.

It’s ironic that I founded Starry Night Lights to protect the night sky only to find myself spending less time outside enjoying it’s incredible beauty, but, such is life. Last night, however skies cleared and I simply couldn’t pass up the wonderful views of the January full moon, known to native americans as the Wolf Moon.

Temperatures were in the upper teens, but the stillness of the night (and the many layers of clothing I wore) made it feel quite comfortable. I had to clear a path through the snow just to get to the telescope but was up and running pretty quick. Full moon nights aren’t typically my favorite nights to observe, since the brightness of the moon hides much of the night sky from view. However, the moon is a special target that offers so much detail that you can spend an evening just looking at it. I took the accompanying image using my Canon Rebel XTi attached at prime focus through an Astro Physics Starfire 160 (6.2″) telescope.

As a special bonus, the red planet, Mars was just a few degrees to the east of the moon (it’ll be west of the moon tonight). Mars has grown considerably bigger and brighter over the past several weeks and it was just starting to show some surface detail (skies were clear, but not all that steady).

If you find yourself under clear skies this weekend. Wrap up in something warm, turn off any outdoor lighting you might have (you won’t need it to see), and checkout the beauty of the night sky. If you have binoculars or a telescope, be sure to point it towards the moon. The views will be quite rewarding. NOTE: set your equipment outside for at least a half hour prior to viewing if at all possible so that it can equalize with the outside temperatures for better viewing.

Some of the features you can look for during a full moon. Credit: Starry Night Software
Source

Although the moon poses as an annoyance to astronomers, due to its natural light pollution, I’m sure they’ll and everyone will appreciate the moon tonight. Tonight the moon will reach its perigee, its closet point to the Earth. The moon is not in a circular orbit and thus, we’re allowed to see the moon at such ‘close’ (perigee) and ‘long’ (apogee) range. This will be a moon to remember for the year, for it will appear at its largest. The first full moon of the year has many names, such as Old Moon, Wolf Moon, Moon After Yule, and Ice Moon; in “Hindi it is known as Paush Poornima and its Sinhala (Buddhist) name is Duruthu Poya.”

Image credit: whatis.techtarget.com/WhatIs/images/perigee.gif

So what exactly can one see on the moon? Well, for starters, one can find the ‘man on the moon.’ This image of the ‘man on the moon’ forms from the light and shadows across the moon’s face. The darker crevasses on the moon’s face are known as maria (singular mare, Latin for sea), where oceans once existed 4 billion years ago, whereas the lighter areas are the moon’s cratered highlands, where asteroids have battered it for many, many years.

Happy mooning!