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Hello, I am on the CfDS Committee and I have been encouraged by Howard to contribute to this forum. I have been doing my own research on light pollution of the rural area of the Malvern Hills AONB for many years.
I attached a PDF that summarises my recent presentations at conferences and publications of this work complete with conclusions. Also, another of many satellite constellation trails across my DarkSky imaging as an example of what we are now facing.Welcome to the forum, Christopher Baddiley. I recall seeing some of your research presented at NAM 2022, and I was seriously impressed by your systematic approach. For me, it was one of the stand-out talks at a very busy conference. It’s great that you’re doing this work, and it’s great to see it talked about in this forum.
Hi Chris,
That’s really great stuff and really important too.
I think it is really important not to conflate conventional light pollution from badly designed lighting and the effect of satellite mega-constellations. The two impacts are very different. For most people living in towns and cities the former has a much greater impact than the latter. The satellite constellations really only impact imagers and there are (usually) ways to mitigate the trails on images. I have been to really dark sites recently where the Milky Way looks like an illuminated cloud and visually the satellites don’t have any impact on the view event during late astro twilight. They are all over my images but there are ways of handling that.
We should be concerned about both of course but the former has a much greater impact on the vast majority of people (including most amateur astronomers) and we need to be careful not to equate the two from an amateur astronomy perspective since I think that weakens our argument when it comes to bad lighting. Bad lighting has no positive benefit to anyone but satellites certainly do. The impact on pros is much worse of course and so our advocacy is certainly very important in terms of getting operators to mitigate the effect of their spacecraft.
Nick.
Hello again, and thank you for your encouraging replies. Here is another piece of work that I did, concerning atmospheric scattering and ground reflection for consideration of new lighting developments. Another PowerPoint presentation. I hope you find it interesting.
The launch of the first satellites planned as part of the Kuiper swarm has happened. It was accompanied with this “everything you need to know” publication. https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/what-is-amazon-project-kuiper
What I’d like to know more about is the environmental impact and effects on amateur astronomers. This recent article from New Scientist gives some startling predictions – https://www.newscientist.com/article/2394949-starlink-carbon-footprint-up-to-30-times-size-of-land-based-internet/ (Sorry, New Scientist is behind a paywall). Apparently, the carbon footprint could be between 31 and 91 times greater per internet subscriber than conventional landline based systems, according to research conducted at George Mason University, Virginia. But this could change depending upon take up of the service and use of more suitable launchers.
We must hope that the methods being tested to mitigate nuisance to astronomers prove successful.BAA members may be interested to learn that there’s an EU legislation initiative on space activities and a survey is being conducted of interested parties. This is in preparation for an “EU Space Law”. The CfDS would like to submit a response, but time is relatively short. We (CfDS) very much welcome BAA member’s views. See https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/EUSLsurvey .
Dark Skies and Satellites are being thought about in Brussels, see this item from Parliament Magazine https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/good-heavens .This is an interesting article from Sky and Telescope on satellite status and the comments are worth reading. https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/a-new-hope-taming-the-satellite-swarm-in-our-skies/
This article is specifically about Starlink https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/next-year-spacex-aims-to-average-one-launch-every-2-5-days/
This article is both intriguing and worrying. I’d like to see more research on this. https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/falling-metal-space-junk-is-changing-earths-upper-atmosphere-in-ways-we-dont-fully-understand
A couple of mental health related articles – https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-023-00135-8?fbclid=IwAR07ItwUkNex3ttfK4Nx5iKPhziplTM3Q7YaL4sIYb9QtZ3ije9KFinhyFI – https://www.wellandgood.com/star-bathing/ I suspect amateur astronomers are too busy with their observations to do much star bathing.
This is a rather sad story, particularly if (like me) you are a nature lover. Fortunately, as the article points out, this event was a rarity. https://news.sky.com/story/chicago-1000-birds-die-in-one-night-after-smashing-into-conference-hall-windows-12979409
A couple of articles from Nature.
This is a good example of a country taking action https://www.space.com/chile-new-standards-fight-light-pollution .
Are you suffering from noctalgia? I suspect that I may be – how do I get tested? See https://www.space.com/light-pollution-loss-dark-skies-noctalgia . One important point made in the article, well put by author Paul Sutter, is “We are losing a rich tradition of human cultural knowledge; cultures around the world and throughout history have used the sky as a springboard for the imagination, painting heroes, monsters and myths in the constellations.”This is a different approach to the dark sky issue.
This item was in the Guardian this week.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/31/everything-from-our-sleep-to-our-hormones-relies-on-the-dark-so-why-are-we-so-intent-on-destroying-itThere is a book by author Jacqueline Yallop, called Into the Dark, out soon (which I have pre-ordered)
https://iconbooks.com/ib-title/into-the-dark/
Many of the news items and links I post have originally been found by Dr John Barentine, longtime Dark Sky International supporter and expert on dark sky issues. Here’s one he found that shows just how much research is being done on the effects of artificial light on life.
This is a first rate Technical Advice Note for good lighting practices, which has been produced by Jack Ellerby and the team at Friends of the Lake District. Many congratulations to all involved.
Jack writes that it covers Cumbria, the Yorkshire Dales National Park and the whole of the Arnside and Silverdale AONB – see also
https://www.friendsofthelakedistrict.org.uk/lighting-policyThis is a thought-provoking article, from the ‘Big Think’ website, reiterating concerns about satellite and LED proliferation. For example, “as of 15th November 2023…there are some ~9000 active satellites, with Starlink making up more than 5000 of them and putting humanity at the greatest risk yet …” The article goes on to describe two potential technological work arounds for astronomical imaging.
But what about star gazing? I worry that this could soon become something that humans used to do. Visual observers should be aware that skies in some places are brightening by 10% a year, reportedly. This is caused by LED intensification and uncontrolled satellite proliferation. Even with 2% per year expansion in sky glow domes, compounding means that we have a very short time, perhaps just a decade, before looking up at the sky at night becomes not worth the effort.
We may be able to use electronically enhanced instruments to see the sky in near real time, but this is an experience mediated by technology and the means to pay for it. It is not an authentic human experience. Does that matter? With the prospect of satellite driven light pollution dominating our skies will the notion of dark sky reserves become redundant.
Some things to ponder if you are out this weekend hoping to see a Leonid.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/technology-save-astronomy-light-pollution/The publication last week of a thought provoking paper, by John C. Barentine, Stefan Wallner and Miroslav Kocifa, on the subject of monitoring night sky brightness (NSB) prompts a few questions:
Does your local observatory monitor night sky brightness routinely, using a SQM or other instruments and protocols?
Do you share your observations with the scientific community and if so how?
Should CfDS be involved in collating NSB observations of BAA members? A programme to do this was initiated but has stalled. Potentially, it could restart if sufficient volunteers take an interest.The paper raises the issue of standardised NSB monitoring protocols. Here is a link. https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stad3538/7425637
I would add that future satellite based methods of NSB monitoring are highly likely to be degraded because of changes in the night sky caused by massive deployment of communications satellites.I personally don’t but Kevin Hills has a SQM within a few metres of my observatory. I will pass on your questions to him and see what he does with his data. If the answer is nothing, yet, I will try to encourage him to engage with you and the rest of the community.
Shouldn’t it possible to extract useful information from the sky background in the photometrically calibrated images and spectra we take ? If so there could already be a huge (untapped ?) historical source of data covering a range of passbands, locations, air mass and atmospheric conditions
Cheers
Robin
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