On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:24:46 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 07:29:33 -0500, Ignoramus30848
wrote:

On 2013-06-13, wrote:
On Jun 12, 11:32?pm, Ignoramus21475 ignoramus21...@NOSPAM.
21475.invalid wrote:


Dan, fascinating story, I might give them a holler.

i

Bainbridge Island is not a great place for an observatory. Too many
cloudy days. But a lot of talented people there. They also built a
planetarium that is useable regardlesls of the weather.

I read somewhere, that due to light and air pollution, it is harder
and harder to find good places for observatories.

That's been true since the 1950s, Ig. I used to live an hour away
(35mi as the crow flies) from Palomar Mountain and, over the years,
there were lots of gripes from the crews (and people who knew them) up
at the telescope. As Escondido and Pauma Valley grew, light pollution
became more noticeable.

Since the 1970s, cities have attempted to mitigate their upward
shining lights with redesigned street lights, but paranoid citizens
just blast unrestrained light (in 500W chunks) all over their yards.
They think it keeps their home safe. Instead, it allows the criminals
to see everything. Morons. I'm glad I'm not bothered by light at
night because far too many of my neighbors over the years have left
porch or yard lights on at night, usually large and expensive-to-run
floods.

A whole lot of industrial lighting (such as that found at refineries)
has been redesigned since about then, too, but big cities (bright
lights in Vegas, NYC, Tokyo, etc.) just blow the skies away with their
brightness.

The Hubble/Spitzer/Kebler and other space telescopes really made
headway against the vagaries of atmosphere and reflected light.

I'm still ****ed every time I see thousands of watts of unrestrained
light blasting out at night, imagining how frustrating that must be to
real astronomers.

I'm with you. My home isn't too bad, but when we were out in the
driveway the other night looking at Saturn and some Messier objects, I
went around and asked the neighbors within reach if they'd turn off
their outside lights. They all did, and it reduced the glare a lot.
No street lights out here. Couldn't do anything about the southern
horizon with Round Rock and Austin beyond the ridge. Light pollution
pretty much blotted out everything below about 30 deg. elevation.
There are some good dark sky sites not too far to the west. Must pack
up and get out there some day.

Pete Keillor