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“For example, in the service level of Terminal 1, a pretty large area (for staff), we have achieved a 75 per cent lighting reduction between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m and between Midnight and 5 a.m. in the Terminal 1 baggage claim area we have about a 40 per cent lighting reduction. If you’re in Terminal 1 after 12:30 or so you will see a lot of lighting turned off.”
“We’ve been involved with Earth Hour since the beginning, in 2008; a direct result of that involvement was the decision to turn off 50 per cent of the fluorescent lighting inside Terminal 1, permanently. We essentially turned off two of the four lamps in every light — no one has even noticed. Thanks to Earth Hour, when you drive up to Terminal 1 on the departure level, the architectural lights to light up the front of the terminal, we shut them all off, permanently.” – Craig Rock, the Greater Toronto Airport Authority’s manager of energy management

“Fact: With no artificial light pollution the human eye can see about 3,500 stars in the night sky. But with the light pollution in Toronto, the number of visible stars dwindles to a few dozen.”

International airports operate 24/7 to cater to inbound and outbound flights. Obviously, airports cater to more travelers during the day time. As such, it dawned on Craig Rock, that perhaps he and his team could reduce the airport’s energy footprint. Aside from the lighting reduction strategies mentioned above, Mr. Rock has implemented escalator motion sensors as well as heating and cooling standby modes. Mr. Rock’s commitment to implementing energy efficient methods should be lauded. Why use electricity when no one is around to actually use it? Furthermore, even if the building you manage doesn’t possess all of the most energy efficient lighting solutions, there’s still no excuse for excess energy. There are alternative methods to ensure maximum efficiency, even if your equipment isn’t efficient. As Mr. Rock put it, “We’ve been learning how to use the building correctly.”

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“The park, home to breathtaking sandstone canyons, strange rock formations and dramatic natural bridge, has one of the darkest and clearest night skies in the US making it possible to see in amazing clarity the Milky Way galaxy and millions of stars and planets.”

“During the summer months, the park has a team of nocturnal rangers – affectionately known as ‘Dark Rangers’ – who are specially trained in astronomy and on hand to advise on star gazing opportunities and educate the public about light pollution and how they can make a difference.”

“Many park visitors are astounded when they first see the Milky Way under a dark sky. It isn’t just a faint smudge in the sky, but a bright, intricate river of light which is almost three dimensional.” -  One of the park’s ‘Dark Rangers’

Natural Bridges National Park in Utah, “accredited as the world’s first designated ‘International Dark Sky Park’ by the International Dark Sky Association”, offers some of the most spectacular starry nights in the United States of America. For those that haven’t been, I would highly recommend a visit out there. The park itself offers astonishing day and night time landscape views. The National Park proudly boasts the prestigious title of International Dark Sky Park and boy, do they make every effort to maintain such a title.  Shielded lighting, energy efficient light bulbs, you name it. I must confess, I do caution visitors that your experience may indeed sadden you, for once you return to your respected homes, you may realize something is ‘missing.’ Light pollution is one of the many environmental scourges of modernity. Even though its effects are 100% irreversible, it hasn’t garnered much attention from city planners. If you’re reading this blog post, you at least have some interest in the night sky. You’d be surprised at how a small impact can bring about ubiquitous change. Advocate for dark skies in your community and let your voice be heard.

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“This will be the largest scale introduction of this type of street lighting technology ever seen in Britain and meets with our aim to make Surrey one of the best places in the world to live.” – Dr Andrew Pove, Surrey County Council leader

“The new energy efficient technology is expected to save more than 60,000 tons of carbon emissions over the next 25 years. It is also set to save Surrey taxpayers at least £12 million over the same period due to lower energy bills and a better contract deal. There will also be a reduction in light pollution because the new lights direct their beam downwards. The individual lights can be remotely controlled from a control centre in Merrow, Guildford. At present, Surrey’s street lights are programmed to come on and go off at set times in the day, with little opportunity to make energy savings. But under the new system, lighting will be increased most where it is needed and reduced where it is not.

Congratulations Surry!

Thanks to a “Private Finance Initiative grant worth £73.9 million from central government”, construction has begun to replace Surry’s 89,000 old streetlights with new environmentally sound lighting solutions. The old Orange light high pressurized sodium lights are being replaced by shielded, remotely controlled lights a part of an electronic grid that notifies technicians if a light needs replacement. The entire construction process will take five years to upgrade the preexisting lights, 70,000 of which will be replaced, whereas 19,000 will be refurbished. Public investment into programmes such as this one, allow future generations to see untainted skies as well as increased energy savings. Whilst the initial upfront cost may deter weary adopters, it’s a long-term investment for the future with substantial monetary savings. An added boon of this lighting overhaul programme lies in the increased standard of living. How? The city becomes marketable as a ‘dark-sky’ city, where tourists and residents reap the benefits of pristine night skies. Whilst it may not seem most people care about the night sky, I guarantee that if you show someone a pristine night sky, they’ll remember it. Perhaps they’ll even yearn for it again. Nonetheless, Starry Night Lights wishes to once again congratulate Surry on securing funding to retrofit all their ever increasing anachronistic lighting solutions.

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“The classic test is Orion. If you look at the belt of Orion, you should be able to see all 30 stars with the naked eye, and if it’s much less then there’s too much light pollution.

Modern street lighting shines upwards, directly into the skies, which pollutes the clarity. If councils used capped lights that are focussed[sic] on the ground, as they’ve started to do in America, we’d be able to start recovering our dark skies. We can turn off orange streetlights more, too. In built-up areas like Shrewsbury, where there’s a lot of nightlife, it would be impractical to switch them off for safety reasons, but there are other areas where we could switch them off after midnight.” – Andy Boddington, Dark Sky Twitter Advocate @AndyBodders and @DarkSkies2010

According to twitter user Andy Boddington, light pollution awareness is starting to pick up momentum. He has personally made light pollution awareness his mission and believes in celebrating what the night sky has to offer. He organized an event to celebrate dark skies last month, where participants would endure the cold of winter to see some spectacular starry night skies. Much to the surprise of Mr. Boddington, he found out that many of the participants or readers have “confessed they’d never seen the Milky Way.” Mr. Boddington plans on organizing another event during the month of March during the Spring Solstice because there is very little moon light. In addition, this event will offer streaming content his website including “a live Twitter stream, articles on dark skies in the Georgian era, and theme music from an indie rock band.”

Mr. Boddington is correct that increased awareness of light pollution can lead to solutions. Shielded lighting allows homes, cities and metropolises to direct light where it is needed: downward. Starry Night Lights offers a wide array of lighting solutions to fulfill your needs. Remember: keep the light downward and happy stargazing!

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“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!

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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.

“Our telescope used to spot stars with magnitudes of 17 or 18. However, at the moment, we are only able to catch magnitudes of 13 or 14.” – Zhao Junliang, the former head of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory.

Another one bites the dust. The Sheshan branch of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory’s second largest optical telescope can no longer participate with other international telescopes. Why? There’s too much light pollution in and around Shanghai. The Sheshan branch of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory lies approximately 23 miles outside of Shanghai on Mount Sheshan, which at the time, proved invaluable to mapping the stars above. Presently, the Sheshan branch of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory is considering remote sensing options in Chile or Hawaii, as well as relocating the observatory to a better suited location. Similar to other nations around the world, China has ignored the effects of light pollution and ruled its effects as ‘inconclusive.’ Whilst the negative health effects of water and air pollution are readily ostensible, nations around the globe haven’t considered the health effects of light pollution due to a lack of palpable evidence. Light pollution affects all life on Earth. Most creatures on the planet, including humanity, functions on a biological clock. This clock, known as the circadian rhythm, is defined in the The American Heritage® Science Dictionary as:

A daily cycle of biological activity based on a 24-hour period and influenced by regular variations in the environment, such as the alternation of night and day. Circadian rhythms include sleeping and waking in animals, flower closing and opening in angiosperms, and tissue growth and differentiation in fungi. See also biological clock.

Furthermore: 

Our Living Language : The circadian rhythm, present in humans and most other animals, is generated by an internal clock that is synchronized to light-dark cycles and other cues in an organism’s environment. This internal clock accounts for waking up at the same time every day even without an alarm clock. It also causes nocturnal animals to function at night when diurnal creatures are at rest. Circadian rhythms can be disrupted by changes in daily schedule. Biologists have observed that birds exposed to artificial light for a long time sometimes build nests in the fall instead of the spring. While the process underlying circadian rhythm is still being investigated, it is known to be controlled mainly by the release of hormones. In humans, the internal clock is located within the brain’s hypothalamus and pineal gland, which releases melatonin in response to the information it receives from photoreceptors in the retina. Nighttime causes melatonin secretion to rise, while daylight inhibits it. Even when light cues are absent, melatonin is still released in a cyclical manner.

Light pollution positively correlates with breast cancer, a decline in sea turtle population and sleep disorders.

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“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.

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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.