[AZ-Observing] Re: [Fwd: Re: Re: Astronomy an unhealthy activity? NO! Light Pollution is Unhealthy!!]

  • From: Brian Skiff <Brian.Skiff@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2005 13:43:20 -0700 (MST)

     I would actually doubt that amateur or professional astronomers
spend enough time in real darkness, and spend most of their existence  
in ordinary ways, so that the difference from the rest of the population
is actually very small.  Most "professional astronomers" are college
teachers, so and do very little observing (the average I read somewhere
was about one week of nights per year).  And of course even those of
us running telescopes are (no longer at least) standing around in
the dark, but instead doing it from what looks very much like an office
with a bunch of computer screens, maybe with somewhat subdued lighting.
     You could make a list of the long-term telescope operators, and
maybe get a hundred of us worldwide, but even the ones I know or know of
are a rather disparate bunch in terms of age and lifestyle, so it would
be hard to find a common thread amongst us (from strict vegans like
Rob McNaught in Australia to the legendary Chilean telescope operators 
who are quite hefty beef-eaters) apart from having spent an awful lot
of nights since we were college age pushing telescopes around.
     There could well be other effects of funny sleep cycles and so on,
but that seems to vary greatly amongst individuals, from little effect
to greatly debilitating physio/psychological problems (that would probably
be there even without staying up late).

\Brian
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