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Re: (meteorobs) Light Pollution

In a message dated 4/7/99 11:02:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Joe63Vette@aol.com writes:

<< Long Beach L. I.  is good. The ocean has no lights for miles (to Europe).  
>>

While I don't want to be the one to sound like a "Gloomy Gus" amidst all of 
the recent enthusiasm here on meteorobs concerning the International Dark Sky 
Association -- but we have a very long way to go to "fix" or even mildly 
correct the problem of light pollution.  As one who has been watching the 
skies since the mid 1960s, I can say unequivocally that there are no dark 
skies available anywhere in the eastern United States.  I have done quite a 
bit of traveling over the past 15 years, and my feelings are that the last 
region in America that still contains truly dark skies -- dark skies that I 
can remember as a very young boy -- are those in the desert southwest, say 
chiefly from west Texas to northern Arizona.  

I fondly remember in 1985 standing on the north rim of the Grand Canyon and 
when the Milky Way came up . . . you could cast shadows from its light!  
THAT'S a dark sky!

And now for another startling bit of information:  believe it or not, this 
was the way the sky was in the Greater New York area some 35 years ago!  I 
personally can remember seeing stars approaching seventh magnitude from my 
uncle's home in Mahopac (Putnam County), New York in 1965.  Today, from this 
same location . . . if you can make out fifth magnitude stars and the 
brighter sections of the Milky Way, it is a great accomplishment!

The umbrella of light pollution is very serious-to-severe over the entire 
northeast US.

Last summer, I went up to Thurman, New York in the southern Adirondacks for a 
family camping trip.  In August 1975, I had several observing sessions from 
this location where the limiting magnitude reached 7.3.  Last year, much to 
my chagrin, I could do no better than 5.9 (and this was on a very clear night 
with excellent transparency).  To many of my fellow campers, the view was 
awe-inspiring, but to me -- knowing how these pristine skies looked more than 
two decades ago -- it was a tremendous disappointment.  Instead of a 
jet-blackness, the background sky looked a dull charcoal gray.  And toward 
the south and east, I could see a dim peach-colored haze caused by the lights 
of nearby (and ever-growing) Lake George.  Even the tiny community of nearby 
Warrensburg now has high-pressure sodium vapor lamps running down their main 
street!

Sadly . . . despite the good efforts of the IDA, my feelings are that things 
are going to get a lot worse before they get better.  What we need is some 
sort of energy crisis a la 1974, to shake the ENTIRE COUNTRY into awareness 
into how much $$$$ is being spent annually on waste lighting.  Meanwhile, I 
suspect that if I ever want to see a really dark sky again in my own 
lifetime, I'm going to have to travel out west . . . or out of the country 
completely.  I only hope that when my own kids reach my age, that there will 
be some place where they can go to see the stars.  

-- joe rao          
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