If you zoom way out on the aerial photo, you can see that the tower is nearly
in line with the Primary Approach path to Spokane International Airport. I
scaled the approximate distance from the tower to the SAS Fishtrap dark site,
and it's about 3.7 miles. Authorities are going to chuckle when we claim that
a distant light is so bothersome, especially since the site belongs to the
Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Flying safety will govern, no doubt. Can't
we just block the light with a low screen or something set up in front of our
telescopes?
________________________________
From: sas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <sas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Nick
Monkman <nmonkman@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2017 12:25 PM
To: SAS
Subject: [SAS] Extremely annoying blinking light at Fishtrap
Last month while out observing at Fishtrap, I and others present were dismayed
to see that the tower directly to the south (perhaps sw?) had been "upgraded"
with a very bright blinking light. The light is bright enough to cast shadows
on the sides of cars in the parking lot and is generally very distracting.
It used to be a fairly innocuous red light, but now it's bad enough to try to
get whomever is in charge of such things to make a change - I'd hate to have
to consider choosing a new observing site.
I don't know exactly where this tower is. I groped around on Google Maps for
awhile and perhaps found it
here<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fmaps%2Fplace%2F47%25C2%25B016%2737.4%2522N%2B117%25C2%25B051%2718.3%2522W%2F%4047.277053%2C-117.8561853%2C402m%2Fdata%3D!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x0%3A0x0!7e2!8m2!3d47.2770533!4d-117.8550908&data=02%7C01%7Ccoyanddale%40msn.com%7C986170df650c44a8c6a908d52ad4b521%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636462015413398305&sdata=BHG0KOpBxtTiLK9iuWOxtT2yL9xc71kvRlfUDNMZEtw%3D&reserved=0>.
(can't really tell if that's a tower or not)
If anyone else has information on where this tower is or whom to contact about
it, I'd appreciate it!
Thanks,
Nick
