Colors of the Night

2/26/06 –3/4/06

By C. Zaitz

We live in an area that suffers from extreme light pollution. We generally don’t even notice it until we happen to be in a place where the sky isn’t washed out by the local All-Mart or our neighbor’s “security” hydrogen fusion back yard lights. When we get away from cities the glory of the sky can hit us like the shock of a fuse blowing on the stadium lights in the middle of a big night game.

The colors of the night around here usually resonate with the orange hazy sodium vapor glow from our street lighting. Amateur astronomers know the annoyance of street light glare and haze from the city lights, but it’s more than just annoyance. Our modern methods of lighting our cities and neighborhood leave a lot to be desired. Take a look down your street in the evening. Do you see the glare from the street lights? Do you see very bright and very dark shadowy places? We tend not to give much thought to our lighting schemes, but our oversight has led to wasteful and sometimes dangerous lighting practices. When light escapes sideways and upward from the lighting fixtures it signals wasted electricity. When you see glare from overhead lighting, it represents dangerous blinding light that can cause accidents and injury. Both problems are fixable, however.

There are many good solutions for lighting the streets and not the skies, but since light pollution is taken for granted (we’ve all grown up with it in one way or another) it is not given a priority in city or community planning. I would like to offer you a good website if you are interested in learning what you can do in our community to help be part of the solution and save money! Try http://www.darksky.org for lots of information on light pollution, what it does to us, and what we can do to get rid of it.

I don’t mean to rant or anything, but a few nights ago I was searching for the stars in my front yard and only found a few. Orion the Hunter is mid sky in the early evening now, marking his final sprint towards the western horizon so he can rest all summer long in the glare of the Sun. The seven bright stars that mark his outline were visible, as was the dog star Sirius following behind him. I saw only the brightest of the winter stars and Mars and Saturn. I had to strain to see the Pleiades, though I knew them to be just west of Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus the Bull. And the arm of the Milky Way I knew was floating overhead was nowhere to be found. I sighed and waved to Orion, knowing that though I couldn’t see it, he was holding a brass club in one hand and a lion’s skin in the other and couldn’t wave back.

My backyard is equipped with motion sensor lights, which not only cut down on electricity, but alert the dog to any possible trespassers, and he in turn alerts me with his funny bark. But I happen to have a dog who adores light and shadows. Motion sensor lights, shielded lights and carefully aimed lights can help keep us safer, save money, and allow us to see the beauty of the night sky. Sounds like win-win-win to me. We can change the sky back from orange to black!

Until next week, my friends, enjoy the view!