Light Pollution

I have been trying to look more consciously at the sky since I have been taking an astronomy class this summer, however I have been having a really hard time seeing stars. I wasn't sure why this was until we learned about light pollution this week. Google says that light pollution is the brightening of the sky that inhibits the observation of stars and planets, caused by street lights and other man-made sources. Doesn't sound like that big of a deal, right? You might be thinking who cares? I was thinking the same thing as I was sitting in class.  However, it's bigger than you think.  Light pollution actually takes a serious toll on our health and the health of our wildlife.  I was reading an article by the physics department at Florida Atlantic University about the side effects of light pollution, and it brought my attention to the damage this pollution does to our health and wildlife. There are some species of frogs that are on their way to becoming extinct because their natural practice is to sing their mating choruses at night.  However, because the light pollution is so bad in Boca Raton, FL, they do not sing the choruses, therefore threatening their reproduction and population size.  I have attached a link to the article at the bottom of this page. The article has a video clip that shows more about these frogs. Ok so you may still be thinking so what? What does this still have to do with me? I get it because I was thinking the same thing as well. But then I continued reading in the article to find that this physics department did a study that found that light pollution worsens city smog conditions.  The lighting breaks down the nitrogen oxides that contribute to smog.  I posted the exact explanation from the experiment below so you can see for yourself exactly the problem that this is...

FLASH: A new study reports that lights on at night can worsen smog conditions for a city! Because sunlight breaks down the nitrate radical NO₃, its levels build up during the night. As it does so, it neutralizes some of the other nitrogen oxides (NO_x) that contribute to smog. But it is not just sunlight that does this, any light can break down NO₃, especially those city lights that are left on at night. Such lights are often immediately next to the sources of the smog creating exhaust and are measured to be 25 times stronger than the light of a full moon. This combined effect reduces the natural cleaner NO₃'s levels down by 7%, which then increases the smog components by a non-negligible 5%.    Now add to that the lights that come with the holiday season. YIKES!!

After reading all of this, and realizing this could be the reason I have not had too much success with star gazing, I decided to take a couple pictures of sources of light pollution around my house.  I have shared them with you below...

Above is a picture of the parking lot to a church and warehouse behind my house around 10PM.  If you didn't know it was 10PM, you would think it was day time while standing in the parking lot.  Notice anything missing in the sky?

Above is a picture of a light on the driveway of my house. This is just one of about five lights like this.  Definitely could be altered to cut down on the light pollution. This is one of the culprits responsible for my failed star gazing.  Again something is definitely missing in the sky!


**There are many things that can be done to cut down on the amount of light pollution.  I am still researching these. Something as simple as replacing upward facing 300W halogen bulbs with downward facing LED lights could help minimize light pollution.  This is something definitely worth looking into further.**


This is the site I promised to share...http://physics.fau.edu/observatory/lightpol-environ.html