There are interactive light pollution maps by year on the web.

Here is one map that appeared in tonight’s news.

mollwollfumble said:

There are interactive light pollution maps by year on the web.

Here is one map that appeared in tonight’s news.

Looks like reflections off the salt pans are contributing to it.
am I right?

In Australia, light away from population centres are mines. (24 hour work, so strongly lit.) The Bowen Basin is quite clear, as are other mining areas, such as the iron ore mines in Western Australia.

Michael V said:

In Australia, light away from population centres are mines. (24 hour work, so strongly lit.) The Bowen Basin is quite clear, as are other mining areas, such as the iron ore mines in Western Australia.

Standing under the night sky of Coonamble and the Newell highway is so much different than in the CBD of Sydney.

The differences are just so far apart. The night sky is so visibly dense with stars when viewing from the north west interior of Australia quite spectacular the differences!

stumpy_seahorse said:

Looks like reflections off the salt pans are contributing to it.
am I right?

I’ll let someone else answer that.

What I most noticed are:
1) Squid boats are still fishing the South China Sea off the west coast of Japan. It’s the largest patch of ocean full of light pollution.
2) All the best-known (V + IR) observatories in the world are in regions of strong light pollution. Consider that the biggest are almost all in Hawaii, Chile, USA and Europe. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider central Australia as a site.

mollwollfumble said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

Looks like reflections off the salt pans are contributing to it.
am I right?

I’ll let someone else answer that.

What I most noticed are:
1) Squid boats are still fishing the South China Sea off the west coast of Japan. It’s the largest patch of ocean full of light pollution.
2) All the best-known (V + IR) observatories in the world are in regions of strong light pollution. Consider that the biggest are almost all in Hawaii, Chile, USA and Europe. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider central Australia as a site.

1) Oops, that’s South Korea.

ooops wrong fred…..

or was it……

no one in any position of power in this or any other country have any notion or care factor about looking at the sky.

You normally install directional lighting to counter light pollution but that’s not going to happen – no brains

It’s going to get worse

Official web site of the latest zoomable map, “The New World Atlas of Artificial Sky Brightness”.

http://cires.colorado.edu/artificial-sky

Here’s a screen dump from the southern Australian mainland.

The light pattern over the USA is most interesting – Very widespread on the eastern half but far more sparse on the western, apart from LA, etc.

Michael V said:

In Australia, light away from population centres are mines. (24 hour work, so strongly lit.) The Bowen Basin is quite clear, as are other mining areas, such as the iron ore mines in Western Australia.

I can see Olympic Dam and Moomba.

Spiny Norman said:

The light pattern over the USA is most interesting – Very widespread on the eastern half but far more sparse on the western, apart from LA, etc.

Here’s a screen dump from Western USA. Pretty.

Wester interior light pollution is dominated by Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Salt Lake City.

The USA and Australia screen dumps are the same scale. Comparing the maps I see that light pollution from Sydney (incl. Newcastle and Wollongong) is very similar to that from Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake City “combined statistical area” has a population of 2.4 million, less than half the Australian equivalent.

mollwollfumble said:

The USA and Australia screen dumps are the same scale. Comparing the maps I see that light pollution from Sydney (incl. Newcastle and Wollongong) is very similar to that from Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake City “combined statistical area” has a population of 2.4 million, less than half the Australian equivalent.

We could create a new public holiday “Turn Your Lights Off At Night Day” so we can have a decent look at the sky. Strictly speaking we don’t need it to be a public holiday at you can’t look at the stars during the day but whose going to turn down a day off

Cymek said:

mollwollfumble said:

The USA and Australia screen dumps are the same scale. Comparing the maps I see that light pollution from Sydney (incl. Newcastle and Wollongong) is very similar to that from Salt Lake City. The Salt Lake City “combined statistical area” has a population of 2.4 million, less than half the Australian equivalent.

We could create a new public holiday “Turn Your Lights Off At Night Day” so we can have a decent look at the sky. Strictly speaking we don’t need it to be a public holiday at you can’t look at the stars during the day but whose going to turn down a day off

I like it. ;-) From vague memory there has been a “switch your lights off at night for an hour” day.

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