Yes, Daryl, I live in Abruzzo in L’Aquila, a small mountain town at the foot of the Gran Sasso d’Italia at an altitude of 700 m. Tivoli is not far away. The 2009 earthquake destroyed L’Aquila, the (very slow) reconstruction is turning the town into a beam of lights shot everywhere and at random. Especially since LEDs consume less electricity. Even in the countryside, you need at least binoculars to spot the Pleiades clusters and Perseus, M42 and M31 can barely be discerned through a telescope, while the Lyre ring nebula has disappeared completely. Only the Sun, Moon and the shining planets remain.
In this hateful and hellish environment, I almost had to give up the telescope. For the past three years, I have been devoting myself to the study of twilight phenomena. At sunset, when the sky is clear, I take a photograph of the anti-solar sky. Then, from these photographs I determine the level of transparency of the local atmosphere.
At first I thought it was a sad fallback. Now, I have an archive indicative of air pollution and the level of ozone in the local stratosphere.
The photograph shows the beautiful view from my home, which shows the respect we have for the natural environment.
Ciao
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
