[AZ-Observing] Re: Light Polluted?
- From: Russell Chmela~ <rchmela@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 17:21:30 -0700
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If you've been wondering why things seem to be a bit more light polluted
over the past few years, take a look at this - It should solve most of the
mysteries :-)
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg
Enjoy!
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Enjoy?... Hardly.
Am a regular daily viewer of APOD and have seen this one before, and
was impressed by the resolution. In our neck of the woods, you can see
PHX elongating to the west, crawling toward its eventual embrace with
California, which will be the LA suburb of Blythe someday. The big
surprise is that Casa Grande actually shows up very well. Hoping thats
due to the finer resolution and better detectors on the satellite and
less to do with CG, but thats the optimist in me. The other surprise
is how Tucson is sliding toward Mehico in terms of Photonic waste.
Other item is Gila Bend , Ajo and Why all showing up as a dim string
along rt 85 (its 85 yes? don't have a map in front of me).
Of course I get a real feeling of fortunateness when I look back at
the Midwest , Chicago in particular and New England , which were both
areas I spent many observing years in and see what they have become. The
feeling is tempered by the fact that there are a lot of good amateurs back
there who are continuing to view from the periphery of that crud.
As the urban areas overload and the "too-many-rats-in-the-box" experiment
reaches its latter stage, those seeking a better life in general head for
the ruralities but bring along all they sought to escape including thier
obligatory 200w mercury vapor flood. When I lived near the Bay area, it
was just very depressing how many areas that should have been dark by
way of not that many people were punctuated at every household with one
of these beacons, making areas even 5 hours away from SFO by car just
not really dark.
The big question is, will we resemble western Europe or Japan in
images taken in 10 years?
The future of amateur astronomy in 100 years? Pacific small islands
like Midway, Kure, or Manaus, or dark-running cruise ships with domes
studding the decks like strange and futuristic battleships?
RC
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