Is amazing the amount of light pollution in Siberia around the oil/gas extraction areas.
Is that the area north of Kazakhstan? That's a lot of light if so.
Light Pollution Map
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Re: Light Pollution Map
#32I was looking at North America as a whole, and noticed a very bright spot in Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. It's almost one of the biggest spots. Wikipedia tells me it has a population of basically 2000 people. Why is it so light?
Go a little farther south and find Ft McMurray in Alberta, which isn't even traditional oil fields but oilsands excavation. Only about 70k people but it's basically as bright as the 1m people cities to the south of it (and the extra wide halo around Edmonton is likely related to refineries).
Heavy industry is bright I guess.
Re: Light Pollution Map
#33This is a bit tangential, but should be a pretty good aurora over North America tomorrow (Sat Apr 24) night -- visible on the horizon as far south as Salem, OR to Annapolis, MD: https://www.gi.alaska.edu/monitors/aurora-forecast
(forecast is for the UTC day, so the prior overnight for NA)
Re: Light Pollution Map
#34I can still smell the diesel oil cars of Madrid. Are diesel cars super popular in EU?
Re: Light Pollution Map
#35I am grateful for this map. I used it to scout out Mojave desert as a place to do some stargazing. I was surprised that Las Vegas is still very clearly visible on the horizon, despite this being a very dark "hole" in the map.
You gotta go really far out to get dark skies all the way to the horizon.
Re: Light Pollution Map
#36Most of this seems pretty explainable except for the offshore spots near South Korea, both east of Busan and near Jeju. Fishing related?
Re: Light Pollution Map
#37It's not like nothing can be done about light pollution. For example Germany has a law about light pollution, and it shows on this map. It less polluted than its neighbours, although it has higher population density and urbanization level.
What is the law? What are people legally required to do?
Most light pollution laws limit outdoor lighting fixtures and require them to only emit downwards and not upwards.
Re: Light Pollution Map
#38Most of this seems pretty explainable except for the offshore spots near South Korea, both east of Busan and near Jeju. Fishing related?
Oil rigs?
Re: Light Pollution Map
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oil industry. Same reason western North Dakota looks like a major metropolitan area.
I saw this same thing. https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/01/16/169511949/a...
"Many farmers in North Dakota can't prevent drillers from drilling — even if they'd like to. Decades ago, the rights to the minerals below those farms were separated from the rights to the land itself — which is why today, energy companies can move in, create drilling pads where they please, move in trucks and workers, without the farmers' consent."
Am I reading this right? A company can just plop drilling operations on a farmer's land?
Re: Light Pollution Map
#40It's not like nothing can be done about light pollution. For example Germany has a law about light pollution, and it shows on this map. It less polluted than its neighbours, although it has higher population density and urbanization level.
What is the law? What are people legally required to do?
Probably the most noticable change in recent years is the replacement of mercury-vapor streetlights with the yellow-orange sodium-vapor lights, or with orangish LEDs (although some use blueish LEDs that are not that great for light pollution).
In terms of actual legal requirements, Bavaria prohibits sky beams/searchlights directed upwards, and the illumination of facades of public buildings between 11pm and morning.