Ranking light pollution

TF
From: (Tony Flanders)
TF
Subject: Ranking light pollution
TF
Date: 2 Jul 2004 06:11:51 -0700
TF
TF I'm not about to quibble whether that level of light pollution should
TF be called "severe", "moderate", or any other adjective. However, by
TF any normal definition of "outer suburb", most outer suburbs are much
TF darker than that. In an outer suburb, I would expect to see all the
TF stars of the Little Dipper fairly consistently, as well as the main
TF body of the summer Milky Way, and to have a good hint of the fainter
TF parts of the Milky Way as well.
TF
TF It's hardly surprising that some places within the city limits of
TF New York are darker than some places in the "suburbs", since most
TF of Staten Island and much of Queens are less densely populated and
TF farther from the city center than much of "suburban" New Jersey.
TF Moreover, NYC includes huge bodies of water -- not least the Hudson
TF River -- that generate essentially no light whatsoever. It also
TF has an extraordinarily high percentage of its area devoted to parks.
TF
TF I bet the Jamaica Bay Bird Sanctuary is quite respectably dark.

It can be. SOme years ago, around halley's comet time, we used the
JBWR for starviewing. The visitor house is on an island in the middle
of the way with only one raod and one rail line connecting to the
mainland. They are Corss bay Bv and the IND Rockaway line.
We did see the brighter summer Milky Way from there on occasion.
The truly astounding feature of the Bay is that the whole eastern
shoreline is occupied by kennedy airport! The seeing was simply lousy
in that direction due ot the the plane exhaust and slipstream.
In late May I and other astronomers had a sstarviewing in
Riverside Park in the 90s (which means 'among the streets in the range
90th to 99th', and not a year or age). Because the Park is depressed
from the street, built into cliffs, and is further lower than the
already trenched Henry Hudson Parkway.
Thus it is shielded from local Manhattan lights be both this
elevation and forest, there was almost no illumination nearby to annoy
us. The park crew put dark trashbags over the nearby park lamppoles to
further remove local lights.
As it turned out, the sky was totally cloudy, with only bried
peeks of the Moon and planets in breaks.
However, across the Hydson was litterally a glaxy of hideous
offensive lights! Some were actually irritating to look at FROM TWO
KILOMEERS AWAY! I have a story about this session in the NYSkies
Yahoogroup forum, written near end of May.

---
þ RoseReader 2.52á P005004