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Host Bill McGeeney is joined by Isa Mohammed of the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy, Frank Turina of the Night Sky Resource Center, and the Director of Dark Sky International's Engagement, Bettymaya Foott.
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What did you think of this Episode? Text Us!
Host Bill McGeeney is joined by Isa Mohammed of the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy, Frank Turina of the Night Sky Resource Center, and the Director of Dark Sky International's Engagement, Bettymaya Foott.
See Full Show Notes, Lighting Tips and more at LightPollutionNews.com. Like this episode, share it with a friend!
Bill's Picks:
Like what we're doing? For the cost of coffee, you can become a Monthly Supporter? Your assistance will help cover server and production costs.
light pollution news. April 2024 sonification the great american eclipse, part two is nearly upon us. Hope you have your plans all set. What a fun show we have today, joining all the way from trinidad and tobago, isa muhammad, and from an undisclosed space in the desert, dark skies, own betamaya foot and educator, ast astrophotographer, mr Frank Torino. This month there's a ferry station in Seattle that appears to have it all figured out. And should we bundle that lighting ordinance with bird legislation or leave unbundled? And when's the last time you used all of your senses Much more to come? Stay with us on this month's Light Pollution News starting now.
Bill McGeeney:Welcome to Light Pollution News. Light Pollution News is first and foremost a discussion where we hope to keep you up to date with everything going on in your life as it affects or is affected thereof by light pollution. I'm your host, bill McGeaney, very excited, as always, that you can join me, and this month you're in luck. My friends, I put together a really fun lineup for you here. First up, welcoming a man who's really making things happen down in the beautiful Caribbean. Welcome, mr Isa. Muhammad Isa, you're a master of all trades, right? You're pretty much an engineer, astronomer, entrepreneur, and you have the original model of Star Trek. What's the enterprise number? Again, I used to know this by heart.
Isa Mohammed:NCC-1701, Bill.
Bill McGeeney:I see it glowing there in the background. I love it, thanks.
Isa Mohammed:Thanks, thanks, thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure, yeah, but master of all trades, I don't know. I love doing astronomy, astrophotography engineer by education. I don't get to use it much, but I just do what I can here in Trinidad and Tobago, you know we do the, the. We set ourselves the grand mission of developing and growing astronomy within the caribbean region. So it's a strong passion of mine and something I love very much what's the reception been by many of the folks out there?
Bill McGeeney:are you? Have you come across a lot of folks who never experienced astronomy?
Isa Mohammed:of course all the time. You know it's one of the greatest things is showing a kid Saturn for the first time in a telescope. It just never gets all the responses that you get. But no, the reception is.
Bill McGeeney:It doesn't get old for me either.
Frank Turina:I still want to see.
Bill McGeeney:Saturn in a telescope. I got new binoculars and new 100 millimeter binoculars.
Frank Turina:And I'm waiting for.
Bill McGeeney:Saturn to come around, because I can't wait for that. When you get the bigger gear, it's like a toy, you know like you just want to keep using it, even though it's not really practical for too much.
Isa Mohammed:Yeah, no, the gear is definitely part of the attraction. I mean it's just cool setting up a 14-inch telescope on a street side somewhere and then people just flock to it. When you're doing outreach Something I've noticed you put a telescope in the ground and it just attracts people. You get lines, you get dozens, hundreds of people just lining up to take a look through.
Bill McGeeney:I heard the exact same thing from Bill Green when he was on One of the Philly movement now Brussels, something or other, but they do sidewalk astronomy.
Isa Mohammed:Yeah.
Bill McGeeney:And just by the simple act of putting the telescope out there makes a whole buzz around and people they get really jacked up about it. They love it.
Isa Mohammed:They do, and you know, one of the things at least we found here in Trinidad is that we were able to attract a lot of young people into astronomy. I is that we were able to attract a lot of young people into astronomy. I don't know how it is in other places. I keep reading that amateur astronomy is something that's really for the older folks, and it's not what we've experienced here in the Caribbean. There are a lot of young people who are really picking up the hobby and running with it, so that's something I'm really glad to see.
Bill McGeeney:I want to ask you a quick question on the technology, because I picked up one of these sea stars that I plan to actually bring down Texas for the eclipse I'm going to bring when we go to Big Bend. I hope to use it down there and it's. Have you seen some of the tech? So technology now is a little more tangible for a lot of people.
Isa Mohammed:It's really accessible, and I think that's the difference here. We I mean Frank and myself and Betty, all of us we're photographers, right, we're photographers, and it's not the easiest thing in the world. There are a whole bunch of complicated steps and everything needs to be just right for an image to come together in the end. But something like the Seastar and the technology and the way you use it off your phone and it does everything on its own, and the way you use it off your phone and it does everything on its own. You could get a picture of a galaxy 100 million light years away just in a couple of minutes by pressing some buttons on your phone, and it really opens up astronomy and astrophotography. At least in that particular sense, it really opens it up to a whole new audience who would never normally be able to enjoy it. I agree.
Bill McGeeney:And you can use it in light pollution, which is another advantage because typical optical systems you can only do so many things in light pollution.
Isa Mohammed:Yes, but as with all things astronomy, it's still better in the dark skies, oh yeah.
Bill McGeeney:Oh yeah, no argument, but as someone who lives in Portal 8, it is nice to be able to use something here in beautiful, bright Philadelphia.
Isa Mohammed:Absolutely.
Bill McGeeney:So next up, I'm sure some of you, the next guest will need absolutely no introduction, but for those of you who aren't affiliated with dark sky international, Betty Maya, you're pretty much the person who takes care of business. You make it happen.
Bill McGeeney:I know you guys have a great team over there. I know it's not just you and I know everyone there works very hard, but you often are the front face for many of the chapters and kind of routing people in the right direction. Is there anything new on the horizon for you? How's Dark Sky prepped and ready to go for the eclipse? Like how's life?
Bettymaya Foott:Hi Bill, thank you so much for the introduction. It's an honor to be here and I actually remember when you first reached out to Dark Sky and it's really cool to see how far you've come with the work that you've been doing in Pennsylvania and to do this podcast. You know it's super exciting. So I just want to say congratulations and thank you for having me on. It's really cool to be here and, yeah, international Dark Sky Week is just around the corner, so make sure that y'all are prepped for that. Idswdarkskyorg, it's going to be your best place to go for Dark Sky Week information, and that is April 2nd through the 8th. So we're going to have big extravaganza parties to end Dark Sky Week right with the eclipse, and I'll be hanging out with Isa down in Texas. So really looking forward to that and wishing everybody clear skies.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah Well, thank you for the kind words. It's very nice. And next up is three-time, I guess, returning champion over here, Mr Frank Tarina.
Bill McGeeney:It's always a pleasure to have you here, man. I love having you on and you know what I was doing the other day, so I use Copilot, microsoft Copilot. For those of you at home, if you don't use Copilot don't know what it is it's like ChatGPT, but it's the Microsoft version and it's good for summarizing. It's good for, like you know, when you're looking at some of these, especially the research articles, where sometimes you really have to figure out what language you're speaking in, even if it looks like English, and Copilot does a good job of summarizing. And you know what I came across. I was looking for something on environmental justice and Copilot returned your site as number two hit. Awesome, that's great. So how are you doing, frank? How's life?
Frank Turina:Things are going really well. I'm really glad to see that the site's getting a little more traction. I think it's great to be on again. I really have a good time every time I'm on here and it's always. I always learn a lot and I think some of the recognition I think that for the website is a result of this exposure. So again, I want to thank you for that and helping me get my message out. Yeah, of course.
Bill McGeeney:That's what I'm here for Trying to work on helping everyone here get the message out. Yeah Well, you three are in luck. This month we have some interesting articles that popped up on the feeds and although I can't control what comes through and I know last month those guys were a little burdened on policy-heavy stuff Luckily we don't have too much of that, but we do have some of that I do want to start off the show by asking what exactly the meaning of light is. So leave it to us humans, who are always trying to either find or apply meaning to areas where there seemingly is no meaning apparent. First up there's a local news story from my area.
Bill McGeeney:Benny Prentroski, a two-year-old, passed when he contracted a viral infection and, in an act of solidarity to console the family, folks all across Delaware County, pennsylvania, switched porch lights over to blue.
Bill McGeeney:The nighttime aerial visual is actually pretty stunning when you see a whole like a sea of houses that have these blue porch lights. We have another article here. That's a little bit clickbaity, but this is actually kind of fun clickbait and the only reason I put it in here because again it leans into how we want to draw meaning from areas where there really isn't any apparent and there are some assumptions, and I'm not sure how founded these are, if at all. For instance, pink they may have used chat GPT to come up with some of this stuff, I don't know but they assert that pink is in support of breast cancer awareness, and purple maybe it's to support domestic violence awareness, and green indicate St Paddy's Day. And then they contend that yellow has no meaning as it simply keeps the bugs away. And when I shine a red porch light, it might be for me to maintain my night vision. Or maybe it's to showcase my support of both firefighters and brothels. Sometimes clickbait is fun, right, friends?
Isa Mohammed:You know, you know, bill, it's. It's interesting One of the things I mean my situation out here in Trinidad one of the things that that red light, that red glow we tend to associate it with astronomy and star parties, us astro people, but when we go out to look at the sea turtles, when they come up to lay their eggs, everything's on red light because it's for the animals and they don't have the sensitivity to the red light in their vision. But the whole beach is covered in this red glow. Just so that you know, the persons who are looking at the animals could see them come up and it wouldn't interfere with them. So different colors can mean different things to different people.
Isa Mohammed:Yeah, and I guess, depending on who you are and the memories it triggers within you, that thing with the blue lights on the porches for the child that passed away, that's just brilliant and it's something that I don't think you think of so easily. But the visual you get and these days with drones, it's easy to get that shot right. Years ago you'd have to get a helicopter or a plane to actually see the effect, but now with drones you could just send it up there.
Frank Turina:Then you could see your whole village illuminated in one color and I just personally thought, in terms of making a statement of solidarity, what a beautiful way to do it yeah, that's exactly my thought, same thing, yeah I think it was when I was reading those articles it kind of made me kind of brought to mind that, you know, lights have always been used, I think, to convey, you know I was thinking of when something happens and we want to show solidarity. We have a candlelight vigil right and the darkest part of the year we have holiday lights to kind of signify festivity and joy and celebration.
Bill McGeeney:And to find Santa. We have spotlights to find Santa and to find Santa exactly.
Frank Turina:You know we have the menorah for. You know the Jewish faith we have. You know, the odd idea of putting a candle in the window to help a family member that's away find their way back home. So this idea of you know light being conveying so much more from like an emotional standpoint, you know, and just sort of communicating those types of feelings and that kind of meaning just sort of communicating those types of feelings and that kind of meaning.
Bettymaya Foott:I'll just add you know, as a dark sky person and advocate you hear blue and porch light and immediately.
Bettymaya Foott:And we're all like oh, no Right, oh, that's bad. But I think what I've been learning more and more is that there is definitely this gray area right that exists in the world and I think, as dark sky advocates advocates, we can be a little bit too black and white sometimes, and what I think this story really shows is how powerful light can be to a community, and I think that that's really what I want to get across to people is the true power of light and how powerful it can be, and how powerful this show of solidarity is to this community, and that we can use light as powerful in other situations to improve communities. It doesn't always have to be adding more light, but just understanding how powerful light is can help us use it in a better way to better our community.
Bill McGeeney:Well, it's funny you mentioned that specific point, betamaya, because we have a piece from Munich, germany, where people gathered in the thousands to wave lights of all types around the protest hate speech, racism, anti-semitism Again, the visual here is stunning For your home, it looks like a sea of stars on the ground. The protest is to unify public opinion and politics against the right-wing AFD party in Germany after the party representatives supposedly met with neo-Nazis. So the lack of natural light, right, is what gives these lights meaning.
Isa Mohammed:There's an interesting point the lack of natural light is what gives these lights meaning. And if you're going to use light to express your emotions, it won't work if you're in a light polluted area, right, like that, that same shot with the, either in munich with the sea of lights, or or the shot in the in the town with the blue porch lights. If it was drowned out with street lights or you know, whatever you, you lose the impact, right. So, you, there's a, there's always this play when you're speaking about the emotional power of light. It's light and darkness, right, but you sort of can't have one without the other in a meaningful way. So if you don't, if you don't have that, that darkness, then there's nothing for the light to show up against, right right?
Bill McGeeney:You put it. Yeah, you put it together. That's it, I agree. Well, let's venture over to the infamous street lighting category, and we have some interesting news items here. First and foremost, we saw a number of articles like this come through in the past. They're tragic stories. This month in Houston, a boy jaywalked on a busy four lane road at night and was the street lights were out on that road and the boy was fatally hit. You know these. These stories are interesting.
Bill McGeeney:I had a conversation with steve quick here in dark sky pa the other day and he's talking about putting up lights and studies talking about lighting in crosswalks, and he said it wasn't enough that you have top-lit light. You have to have some horizontal light to illuminate the individual as they come across, and he thought that it could possibly mean that you have either like four or five times as many lights, depending on the setup of that, that intersection. I guess I have a really seasoned dark sky crew here. What should I be making of this case here? Is this not the case for brighter and whiter? I be making of this case here? Is this not the case for brighter and whiter streetlights? Is this not it?
Bettymaya Foott:I feel like the time and a place to insert yourself as a dark sky advocate around lighting and like maybe this is an opportunity to not talk about less lighting, right, or even talk about reducing lighting, but talking about bringing that street light back, but designing it in a way that increases visibility for drivers and pedestrians right, and bringing in information about holy shielded lighting that's only bright enough for the area that it's in right, because I think, as you mentioned, the contrast, right If it's a really dark area versus if there's a lot of other lights around.
Bettymaya Foott:That really depends on the intensity of light that you're going to need and using that as an opportunity to bring lighting back to that area, but to bring better quality lighting back.
Frank Turina:Yeah, and I think that's an important point because you know, if we said on the show a lot of times, you know most night sky advocates are not advocating for getting rid of all light, right, we, we're just advocating for better lighting, and so it's more about that. You know, if that place where that boy was was killed had better lighting, you know everything would, everything would have been great. So I think it's not about whether there should be lighting at all. It's more about, you know, is the lighting of good quality and provides the contrast, it provides the visibility, prevents those hot spots? I think that's more of the question.
Bill McGeeney:Baton Rouge. The plan is to brighten the entire city, which obviously isn't unique to Baton Rouge. Atlanta announced their really creative name Light Up the Night. What is interesting is that Baton Rouge residents will be unwittingly forking the bill. Due to the LED switch involving Baton Rouge's entire city brightening project, residents should expect a small increase in their bills. In the WFAB 9 article, the cost of operating and maintaining streetlights is apparently shared by energy customers, so why don't residents have a voice, I guess? If I'm paying a direct cost involved in my street lighting, why am I not polled to provide input on how that street lighting should be implemented? Maybe we could use cheaper fixtures or some cost-saving initiatives like motion sensing lights or energy reducing light volumes in certain hours. Right, why are we so accepting of this one-size-fits-all policy?
Bettymaya Foott:Well, I was confused about this. One Bill Is this talking about? Because I know some energy companies actually have specific lights on properties.
Bill McGeeney:Is this talking about?
Bettymaya Foott:like all of the streetlights, or is this just talking about like lights that are on somebody's property?
Bill McGeeney:You're talking about streetlights that are on people's property.
Bettymaya Foott:Yeah Well, I don't know. People have barn lights that are connected to the main electrical company's streetlights, but it's on just illuminating in their property. So I don't know, maybe that's not how it is other places. I was wondering if that is what they're talking about.
Bill McGeeney:It's a good question. I understood it and I could be wrong. I couldn't very well be wrong here. I understood it to be. A factor of putting the led switch over is that they were actually disseminating additional costs to the users, which in this case would be citizens okay, because there were a couple articles about like the same led exchange.
Bettymaya Foott:So this is. Everyone's now getting this letter. That's like you're gonna have a higher bill, because shouldn't it be a less? The bill be less because they're more energy efficient right. And they're not using as much energy. I don't know I would be pissed at the customer for sure, yeah.
Bill McGeeney:The Atlanta story is a little more curious because they're going to be spending about $3.9 million on the last phase of their lighting project. It's part of a $70 million crime reduction plan. So for many cities like Atlanta, baton Rouge, memphis, louisville, newark and here in Philadelphia, they look at and they appear to really pull some of the reasoning behind two studies I preface with derive, because I have yet to pin down on many of these individuals who I try and reach out to. They don't really give me the actual details on what the basis of their studies are using here, however, a period derived from the 2018 Detroit study on street lighting impacts and the weaponization of lighting study by Andrew Chalfin and his team over at Chicago Crime Labs that's the New York City study.
Bill McGeeney:As you were saying, frank, providing light in an area where you have people that are going to be potentially jaywalking seems like a no-brainer. It becomes a question of what you're putting in and what the fixtures are and how you handle those. But then we're also talking about weaponizing lighting for the community. We're talking about adding very bright lights in areas that you know. If this is a rich community, there's no way it would happen, but since it's not a rich community and it's deemed to have maybe statistically or maybe there's other reasons behind it they're going to have very high or very bright areas. So I'm not sure how much of the Light of the Night campaign is in good faith or is a more politically expedient way to kind of preface with the crime reduction plan like so I'm going to come in here, because trinidad and tobago, apart from being a tropical paradise, has a serious crime problem.
Isa Mohammed:Right, we're, I think, within the top 10 in terms of homicide per capita in the world.
Isa Mohammed:So this is something that we deal with all the time, and I'll tell you straight up that there is an emotional component of this that is very strong and very deep.
Isa Mohammed:People feel safer in bright spaces and there is no way to work around that. You could educate, you could bring studies, you could bring evidence, but in the back of your head or the pit of your stomach, people just feel safer in bright spaces and where it fits, and it should not be removing light per se, but rather controlling light and putting it where it needs to be and keeping it away from where it doesn't need to be. So there needs to be. I mean, I think among the, among dark sky advocates, real care paid to issues like this, and I won't go along the lines that it's just politicians politicking, because in this case, at least in the interactions I've had with people here at home, people want the light because it makes them feel safe, and so that's the job of the politicians. Then it's what the people want, and then our role has to be about not getting in the way of that, but rather making it better issues are always so intractable and it's hard to get politicians and governments to implement lighting standards and lighting plans.
Frank Turina:There was a political scientist named Deborah Stone who wrote this book called Policy Paradoxes, back in I don't know, it was back in the 90s, I think and she recognizes that security is a very important policy goal and a societal goal and, as such, politicians get lots of praise and reelected if they can frame their proposals in terms of security. It's a very potent issue. It's why you hear a lot of discussion about who supports the police force the most. You know those types of discussions about law and order. Who's the law and order party? How you want to act is also a very important societal goal and a political goal.
Frank Turina:And what Debra Stone pointed out is that liberty and freedom and security are a paradox. So you can't have security without giving up some of your liberty. You can't give up. You know you can't have liberty without you know you're going to have trade-offs with security if everybody can just do what they want. So there's this intractable conflict between you know the idea of providing security and also providing liberty, and it's you know. She notes that these types of paradoxes are often at the root of really you know, intractable kind of wicked problems, and I think that's fundamentally where we are with lighting, because we're kind of facing that trade-off. There are people that you know that want the security, but there are pushback about. You know what was the? There was the refrain that the government was trying to tell people which light bulbs they could use. Remember that. So there's this conflict that you have with between security and liberty and I think that's kind of what is making it so difficult for you know, lighting ordinances and lighting plans to get implemented.
Bettymaya Foott:That was so beautifully said. I just want to say that was really well planned by both of us.
Frank Turina:Yeah, thanks.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, I had Jennifer Huygen on here a while back a couple months ago and she was saying you know, like in a town that really doesn't have too much crime I mean I'm not gonna say it doesn't, let me rephrase that it doesn't have a, it doesn't have an abnormal amount of crime, I guess. And they needed to have this lit bike path 24 7, because if you want to go through, cut through town there. It just was a way to make people feel safer and so you hit on it Like people just want to have those lights.
Bill McGeeney:I think it's a very difficult point for dark sky advocates because, as Frankie said, there's a paradox there. You can suggest, you know, motion sensors. I don't think people want motion sensors. You can suggest, like, dimming down the lights, but you have to frame it really well because otherwise people are going to be like you're making a dimmer, what are you trying to do? And then the other end of it here as being someone who lives in a major city, I look at it as like the lights haven't worked to cut crime ever Like they. In my perspective. You know, the same areas that have crime still have crime. So those lights, maybe we're using it in a way that maybe it's, as you said, frank, a little more psychological, but I feel like you know it's a a quick and easy fix to very difficult problems.
Isa Mohammed:I got that impression as well with the, the one of the first stories we read, with the person who was, who was tragically, you know, hit while trying to cross a road. And you know, I find it interesting that the first you know finger went up against the light and fixtures, when you know if, if you scapegoat something that's easy as light, you may miss the real root cause that's contributing to the issue, light, you may miss the real root cause that's contributing to the issue. So I think we have to be very careful about jumping to quick and obvious oh, there's not enough lighting when there could be deeper, underlying things that really need to get fixed, that get ignored because fixing the lighting is like a quick fix.
Bill McGeeney:Well said, let's switch over to Grand Rapids, michigan, where some folks appear not to be huge fans of a new lighting switchover. The city spent $10 million to bring in LED lights. The change in brightness, combined with the white colors, appear to be off-putting, with one resident comparing it to the sun. When asked, grand Rapids City Engineer Tim Berkman dodged a brightness question. Instead he chimed back that they're the color of moonlight, otherwise known as 4,000 Kelvin. Grand Rapids cited 314 other cities with a population exceeding 100,000, which utilized 4,000 Kelvin temperature lighting. Now here's the kicker. Grand Rapids actually attempted to survey the residents in their preferred color temperature via a postcard survey, but for whatever reason, apparently they didn't receive much response. In a postcard survey, grand Rapids reached out to 494 households and received 14 responses. In 2020, grand Rapids had an estimated 77,000 households. In doing some modest math, that means for the postcard survey, there's about two-thirds of 1% of households have received these postcards. But there was a separate survey to the rest of the community which was open to the entire population, and only 35 individuals took it, making another fraction of a fraction of the total participation rate. Despite the paltry responses, those who did provide feedback opted for 3,000 Kelvin, over 4,000 Kelvin. And still the city decided against using 3,000 Kelvin because apparently it's more cost effective.
Bill McGeeney:The case for 4,000 Kelvin was backed by what Grand Rapids termed as a lack of studies which proved the health benefits of 3,000 over 4,000 lighting temperatures. It should be noted the reasoning for this came from the US government's energygov website. I unfortunately couldn't pin down the direct sources, ty, because these study references were on a graphic and I couldn't extrapolate that graphic. The city tried, right. The city tried to reach out to its residents, but at the end of the day the city probably and I'm guessing they probably said hey, we're seeing such a low response. It doesn't seem like anyone really cares. Let's just go with the cheap solution. Is that what's happening here?
Frank Turina:I think political apathy is really hard to explain but it's very prevalent and you know some of the ideas that are behind the apathy that we're seeing a lot of politics today. It may seem like there's a lot of divisiveness and everybody's in the politics, but when it comes time to vote you know we're starting to we still see very small percentages of the population that are voting, especially in off-year elections and things like that local elections very minuscule percentages of people actually taking the time to vote. So in that sense there is a lot of apathy in, you know, citizen apathy in government. And it's interesting because apathy and activism and really getting into an issue are kind of two sides of the same coin, are kind of two sides of the same coin.
Frank Turina:Apathy comes from when you sometimes can come from. You know the perception that you don't have any true influence in the process and so why bother? So a lot of people get the postcard. They're like you know, I'm not even going to bother doing this, it's just going into the system and it's not going to be worth my time and effort to put in this postcard.
Frank Turina:That type of behavior, that type of idea explains a lot of the low turnout we have for elections and a low participation we have in public meetings, things like that. However, that same feeling of helplessness or same feeling of like ineffectiveness can also lead people to becoming more activist. So you have both sides of the same coin, you know. So I think it's frustrating to see, you know, people given a chance to affect this decision in their community kind of throw up their hands and go why bother? But I think that's something that's been documented over time, that you become sort of accustomed or conditioned over time to think that your ideas or your input isn't going to have much of an effect, and so that kind of leads to apathy.
Bettymaya Foott:Well, and I would also add to that like light pollution and lighting is and I don't I don't want it to be this way, but it's seen as like a nice to have right. So many people nowadays have so much going on in their lives. There's so much politically that's affecting them. There's global political issues happening, local political issues. Like a small postcard about lighting is not going to make that impact on a local family.
Bettymaya Foott:It doesn't seem like a priority right, and it can be a privilege to have the time and the energy and the education to understand what this postcard is about and to take the time to fill it out and to send it back, right.
Bettymaya Foott:So I think that that also adds just into the apathy.
Bettymaya Foott:And as somebody who thinks about lighting all the time and I'm in it and I care so much about lighting like I want everybody to care about it too. But I feel like we are just in this sad fact of the reality today where it's not a possibility for people to care about it. But I will just add, that's why it's so important to have dark sky advocates in places like this, because, as we've seen, like Deanne Gregory in Kansas city, right, she was kind of like a lone voice out there Like please don't put bright LEDs, bright white leds, in kansas city, and she just kept going at it and telling people how much it mattered to her and they listened and they changed and and they took a different path of action. As opposed to 5000 kelvin led, I think they ended up with 3000 kelvin. So like it's hard to to motivate a huge mass of people to fill out a survey, but I think even one, like you were saying, one dedicated political activist or advocate, can really make a big difference as well.
Isa Mohammed:Yeah, and it's striking that the people who did fill out the thing preferred the 3,000 Kelvin rather than the 4,000.
Bettymaya Foott:I mean that's like 70 to 45 percent. That was a huge gap 3,000.
Isa Mohammed:Kelvin rather than the 4,000.
Bettymaya Foott:I mean, that's like 70 to 45%.
Isa Mohammed:And then they, just, they, just, they just dispense with that.
Bill McGeeney:You know it was like oh well you know, to be fair, it was 49 people or 49, some households out of 77,000. Right, you know, if you want to make a case, I think they pretty much did a pretty good job of saying, hey, we tried and this is what we got back. Yeah, it seems to be the trend. I've noticed a number of stories come through over the last few months that people prefer the warmer lights. They really don't like the white lights, and I won't say everyone, but the majority of people seem to prefer the warmer lights, and maybe it has something to do with our circadian rhythm prefer to warmer lights, and maybe it has something to do with our circadian rhythm. You know, like, at the end of the day, you kind of just want to have that warmer light, or maybe it's something we've been conditioned to with the high-pressure sodiums.
Bettymaya Foott:I don't know, Like a fireplace.
Isa Mohammed:Yeah, it does feel better to be surrounded by the warmer lights than it is to be by the white or blue. Now, I prefer the white or blue if I'm working and I need light on an area to get something done.
Bill McGeeney:It feels like you're in a factory.
Isa Mohammed:The white light reminds me of a factory If I'm relaxing at home, I want that warmth.
Frank Turina:Yeah, or a prison yard. They always talk about prison lighting right.
Bettymaya Foott:Or hospital Hospital lighting. Hospital lighting yeah, like the bright white is not good yeah.
Frank Turina:All right.
Bettymaya Foott:I like that have we talked about this one yet where the woman was like. What's that? Mid-century modern cool vibes with the orange light. This is the story.
Isa Mohammed:This is the story Vintage vibes but there's a question here about values as well, right, and what we value as people, and I think a lot of people you know. Maybe it's a generational thing where more light is better, right. So just people generally think oh well, light is development, it's progress, it's security, it's safety, more light is just better. But there needs to be true, and I think it's through the constant advocacy there needs to be a shift in values towards warm light is better than cold light and less light is better than more light. Now we need light, but we can't go overboard and that needs to be part of our value system.
Bettymaya Foott:Lights are like calories.
Bill McGeeney:You need some, but you don't want way too much. Isa, I want to ask you a question real fast on that, because when I had Ben Chappelle on from the Narrowband channel and I think, frank, you're on that show he mentioned that his father was the first thing that they have. When they put a new play structure up for their kids, the first thing he wants to do is put lights on it and he's like no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. But generational, I don't know. Can you explain that one to me?
Isa Mohammed:I have my own thoughts on it, then get the full cut off and let it point down, and then we back and forth and we argue. But I find it a lot easier to speak with younger people I guess people of my generation about this, because you could bring up things like oh, it's not good for your health, it's not good for the environment, and they stop and listen. But maybe it's just my experience and people around me that the older generations no, we need more light and we need more light. And it's just my experience and the people around me that the older generations know we need more light and we need more light and it's safe. So I guess that's just my personal experience.
Bill McGeeney:That's been my experience as well, so I'm glad I'm not the only one, but it sounds like we have three people who have vouched anecdotally about this. Well, let's move over to Palo Alto, California.
Bill McGeeney:The Communities Architectural Review Board expressed displeasure with a bird-friendly proposal.
Bill McGeeney:Chairman Peter Balte and Vice Chair Kendra Rosenberg made a case against adopting the ordinance, which included a dark sky provision. Expressed among their complaints was displeasure with the proposed uniform bird safe window rule for new construction, displeasure with the ordinance's attempt to reduce light trespass and New Construction, Displeasure with the Ordinance's Attempt to Reduce Light Trespass and Glare and Displeasure with the Common Sense Practices like Shielding and Proper Aiming. Rosenberg further argued that once you start going inside someone's home or someone's building and affecting how they're operating and how they're doing things, you're crossing a pretty notable boundary. I don't know if any of you guys saw the ordinance that specifically mentions actually looked at any of the ordinance that I had in this file here, but it didn't specifically mention changing or affecting the interior of anyone's building and maybe I missed that. I will note that the article mentioned that Mountain View, Cupertino and Sunnyvale neighboring communities all have bird safe building design rules in place. With Palo Alto, the architectural board finds them offensive to freedom. In this case, are we talking about a situation just of bird haters?
Frank Turina:I don't know. I think. I think the government crosses that boundary all the time. Right, I mean there are. The government affects what you can do inside your building. There are materials you can't use. Right, I mean the government affects what you can do inside your building. There are materials you can't use Right. Can't put asbestos everywhere. You can't use lead paint anymore. The ADA Americans with Disabilities Act has a lot of requirements for things you have to do inside your building. There's health and safety codes. I don't get it.
Bill McGeeney:And look at where it's gone. Frank, Look at where we're at now.
Frank Turina:Look at America.
Bill McGeeney:Look at it.
Frank Turina:But I think it's. You know, I think all those things are for a good cause. So why is this different? I don't get the. I think that's a non-point to what they're saying about. Oh, we don't want to affect what people do inside their buildings. Well, you do that all the time. So you know, it just isn't a big enough. Lighting isn't seen as protecting birds isn't seen as a big enough reason to do that. I think it's something it seemed like a non-argument to me.
Bettymaya Foott:But it's the addition, right? We're used to all of these things that are already there, right, but it's like, oh my gosh, stop.
Bettymaya Foott:Like don't tell me what to do with my property on my land. Like I've heard that so many times, especially in, like Southern Utah. Don't tell me what to do with my property on my land. Like adding more things and more of the things on top of what people already deal with, like it inherently is gonna to push them away. Right, I don't know how this process worked, right, but were these people invited to be a part of this decision-making process? Were they invited to these conversations about the ordinance? Were they invited to contribute and to co-create this? Or was this something that was just kind of like slapped on them and shown to them and like, all right, this. Or was this something that was just kind of like slapped on them and shown to them and like, all right, this is better for birds, so figure it out, instead of you know seeing who they are as people and seeing where they're coming from, and kind of coming together?
Bill McGeeney:that's a really good plan, so I can see why, like I can see exactly why this would happen.
Bettymaya Foott:It's surprising to me that it's in cal, because I feel like California is very, like you know, pro-environmental. But just from my experience growing up like I know these type of you know what knee-jerk reactions I guess is what you call them to adding more regulation, and I think that people have a point and there's also a way to move forward by like bringing everybody together around the solution that everybody agrees with yes, I see you jumping over there no, I mean, I was wondering if this was something that was being.
Isa Mohammed:Maybe maybe I missed it. Is this just for residential buildings or for commercial buildings?
Bill McGeeney:because I believe, is for all buildings there's different, there's different specifications, I think but I think it's for all buildings, and I don't think it's retroactive. I could be wrong.
Isa Mohammed:Because building codes are already fairly detailed and there's tons and tons and tons of things that go into building code with new construction and they're for a whole slew of different reasons. So to Frank's point yeah, this is just one more thing on the building code, one additional paragraph on top of the 150 other things that the architectural firm or whoever has to deal with. So if it's something on new construction on a commercial property, you can't see people being too upset about it. There are a million things being controlled in that building anyway. You know, this is just one more.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, I was more taken back that they're talking about the inside and, to the best of my reading through it, it didn't seem to have anything on the inside, and I'm thinking of the exterior windows, and maybe, technically, they're talking about the windows having their own.
Isa Mohammed:Yeah, it'll have to do with light on the inside shining through the glass attracting birds, who will then fly towards the light and hit the glass. Yeah, if my understanding is correct, so you could either deal with it by shielding the light on the inside or doing something with the window on the outside. I think the you know. However, at least the way I think. However you come up to to deal with it you know that's, that's your choice could be something as simple as blinds. Maybe you know, but bright lights on the inside shining through glass, that that will attract blades into the glass is probably what they're trying to avoid. Well, these next two make a little more sense to me, and they're trying to avoid.
Bill McGeeney:Well, these next two make a little more sense to me and I'm glad you're here because I really think that this one and any of you guys could pick this one up. But I think this might be the way you eloquently talk about certain things. I think this one fits the bill. In Belkoo, northern Ireland, town councillors have expressed concerns over progressing towards a dark sky designation, since it may be detrimental to the community. Specifically cited in the piece was the town's plan to light up Cottage Green. Cottage Green is a park common area in the community.
Bill McGeeney:I wasn't able to dig too much details on the plan. I don't know if any of you guys were. I was able to find some motivation for brightening the park, a Mr Bernard Donnelly stated in an unrelated article. Well, I'll tell you one thing that's bad about Belcourt we have no lights around the cottage green and people can't walk around at night. The other piece comes from the tiny town of Antelope, oregon, population 37. Even there, residents expressed dismay that the mayor removed the only four streetlights in town in order to install new dark sky compliant street lighting. That as of this article. I don't know if those have been turned on or not, but apparently, the town has been without streetlights for months and some of the residents are fearful for their lives and property. The thread that ties these stories together is that Antelope is trying to obtain dark sky designation. Can these towns have their cake and eat it too?
Bettymaya Foott:I mean, I think what's important about the dark sky designation is that we only designate international dark sky places in places that want it. Like if there's so much pushback about lighting and dark skies being detrimental to the area, like maybe that's not the right area for a dark sky place, right, like we don't want to come into a community that does not value dark skies. And I think we have seen example after example after example of communities and parks and sanctuaries and reserves that fully value and support and celebrate and elevate their dark skies and use it as a point of pride for their community and bring people in from all over the world to be in a town, maybe that only has four streetlights or that doesn't have any streetlights the Ome Island, or what's the one where the Scotlandotland one, the island, or is it?
Bettymaya Foott:sky, sky sky no, I don't think that's what it's called. Anyway, I can look it up. But there's, you know, there's an island that doesn't have any street lights at all, and people we were talking about it in one of the advocates meetings and every dark side. How do we go like, oh my gosh, I want to go there. When can we go there? When can we book our flights? Right like there's there?
Bettymaya Foott:is an audience for this certain type of like dark sky area and you don't have to have no lights at all. But there are some places maybe where it's not the right time yet. Maybe it will be in the future, but if there's so much kickback from a dark sky you know pursuing, then maybe it's not the right time.
Bill McGeeney:How much of that do you think is from the phrase dark in sky?
Bettymaya Foott:I think that 99.9% of the time, like, dark is seen as so bad, right, dark is equated to evil and light is pure and goodness and progress. And dark is the dark agents, right, regressing, not knowing things. And, yeah, I think that we've seen in a lot of places, like in in germany, they they don't call their park a dark sky park because of the connotation that that dark has. There is a starry part, right, and I know the dark sky has thought about changing their name from dark quite a few different times, but every single time it's been like you know what? Like we're gonna own it, we're gonna own dark and we're gonna bring change. You know, try to change these ideas around darkness, right, change the idea of darkness being bad to darkness being a necessary part of the environment, right, and this is a big topic, bill, because I think that dark and light being good and bad is tied to a lot of social issues.
Bill McGeeney:Oh, that's at the root of our culture, right?
Bettymaya Foott:Yeah exactly, and so I think it's really important. It's really important the work that dark side advocates are doing, because starting to take this apart a little bit and tease apart why we think of darkness as bad and change that and give darkness you know it's light, it's time in the limelight as being something positive. I think it adds to the growth of society overall.
Bill McGeeney:When I saw the article about the cottage green being lit up, I thought why can't you light it up? People not being one, being wanting to not be told what to do.
Bettymaya Foott:You know, people just have that knee jerk reaction like, oh my God, this is going to make everything so hard, I can't do anything.
Bettymaya Foott:There's no lights at all and, as Frank mentioned, earlier, like we're not about having no lights at all and you know, technically New York City or Los Angeles could be an international dark sky community. That is one of the categories that doesn't have a particular brightness level of the sky necessary for designation. Right, it's just about how you are managing your lighting and making sure that when lighting is installed, it's warranted, it's following the five principles. Making sure that when lighting is installed it's warranted, it's following the five principles. So I think that it's also just a lack of education on people's on other people's part, and a lot of that comes from the initial fear of the word dark. So I think you really hit that one on the head.
Frank Turina:Yeah, that's what keeps coming back to mind, for me too, is the idea that if these people just understood, you know, if they just understood this issue, they understood the benefits of having dark skies, if they understood the impacts from having light pollution, if they understood that you know, there's a better chance that they would react in a positive way. Certainly, providing people with facts doesn't always change their opinion on things, as we all know. But I think sometimes just giving people information and alleviating some of their concerns, acknowledging their concerns, providing them with information, that sort of addresses those concerns and it really kind of has a positive effect in situations like this where, you know, it just seems like it just comes from this lack of understanding of the issue. I think it's something that we can, you know, we have to kind of continuously address, and we did that with the Park Service all the time and 90% of my job was just educating people in the park about the benefits of controlling lighting and the benefits of promoting the night sky and all of that.
Frank Turina:But I think that's again like Ben and I said, it does come from that connotation of darkness, and we had very similar conversations at the Park Service about how do we deal with this idea of darkness, and we had very similar conversations at the park service about, you know, how do we deal with this idea of darkness, how do we take something that has all this negative connotation and present it as something beneficial and positive and healthy and all of that? And it was a challenge. I think maybe we shied away from it a little bit and tried not to use dark as much. We were the natural sounds and night skies program. So those are very valid issues and I think it's something that the Park Service dealt with for a long time too.
Bill McGeeney:The island that you were looking for and thank you for finding this was the island of Sark. That's the one you're looking for a bit, amaya.
Bettymaya Foott:Sark, sark, it even rhymes with Ark yeah thank you and. Ada Blair has a great book about it.
Bill McGeeney:I have a great postcard from a place here in Pennsylvania called Shunk Of course a weird name too and it's a postcard I got in the only store slash gas station, slash deli, slash touristy, like it was just one store in town, and it's just a normal postcard and it says Shunk at Night, it's just black.
Isa Mohammed:You know, I think, as we're talking about the education side of it, maybe we need a few celebrities on board.
Bettymaya Foott:I haven't been saying this for so long I know we have bill not, we have a clip of bill nye from forever ago saying oh, support. You know what did she say tv does international dark skies association like I'll take it, uh, but yeah, we need like a leo dicaprio and like an oprah. We'll have an oprah to talk about this I would, if anyone listening to this podcast connections with john oliver like we need a whole john oliver special about hearts guys. I feel like he would dive right into it anybody, anybody.
Bill McGeeney:Friends with taylor swift they had an episode where stone cold went stargazing, so you know yeah joe rogan talked about it once, but not that. That's the best, was he sober was Was he sane?
Bettymaya Foott:I mean Neil deGrasse Tyson talked about it. He's problematic as well in some ways, but we're getting close.
Bill McGeeney:I feel like the message is getting out there, it's just like.
Bettymaya Foott:My idea is we need a Super Bowl commercial too. We need something.
Bill McGeeney:I don't think my $30 a month is going to cut this.
Bettymaya Foott:My membership fee is not going to cover that.
Isa Mohammed:If enough people become members, though, People these days are all about experiences, right? So you get these experiences where people could go out to a dark location and you have the Milky Way, or you have the Aurora, or you have God, a meteor shower, and you get people getting these experiences that they simply cannot get. Anywhere. That's lit and people will podcast about it, they'll vlog about it, they'll get it up on TikTok, they'll get it up on Twitter and, to me, those experiences that people could have and share and fall in love with, those are the kinds of things that will start getting the message in that there's value in this darkness.
Bill McGeeney:That's an excellent point and I'm tempted to go right to break on that one, but I want to talk real quick because this one came in late. This article here, and I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but just put it on the horizon, people, there's a company, an architectural firm based out of California, that is looking to bring the tallest tower to Oklahoma City, and this is bonkersly taller than every other building in the town, whereas the current tallest tower is 844 feet, the Devon Tower. This is over 1,000 more feet and 1,907 feet the building is. As the managing partner for the architect firm has said, rob Budetti. The building will be a beacon of light that will be seen for 100 miles, maybe more. That does not sound optimistic right there, but good luck to the people in oklahoma city. I hope someone listening is paying attention, and I'm sure that they're well aware of this building, which also has a lower part that has a vegas style brightness factor with complete with circling led boards and a weird name tag in the center of the building. It it's all very kind of tacky, but who am I to judge? So, anyway, move on to our first breather here. So stay with us, you at home. We have an interesting ecology segment coming up.
Bill McGeeney:But first, you may be aware of it or you may not be, but Light Pollution News is completely, 100% supported by listeners like yourself, and every little bit helps us grow the show. If you like what we're doing here, if it adds value in your life in some way, please, why not say thank you by simply becoming a supporter of Light Pollution News? It only takes $3 a month and that's honestly a cup of a cup of joe. At least here in Philadelphia. It is For just $3,. You can help us keep the show moving forward.
Bill McGeeney:If you don't want to support the show, maybe you can't I completely understand that. So why not help promote the show to your friends, co-workers, city planners and more? Let's work together, build a smarter and more responsible future for everyone. Part of that involves having the discussion around light pollution and it also involves interrogating our assumptions. And that's really what the goal of Light Pollution News is to communicate and to debate how best we as a society can balance our needs at night with nighttime preservation. If you're already a supporter, thank you so much. We really appreciate the help and we look forward to growing our reach. And, of course, please, if you're listening right now, why not subscribe so you don't miss a future episode? Isa, why don't you tell me more about the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy? What is the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy?
Isa Mohammed:Yeah, so the Caribbean Institute of Astronomy, carina it's a lovely name for a very small organization. It's a small nonprofit run by a group of dedicated volunteers who set ourselves the goal of growing and developing astronomy within the Caribbean region. And it's not an astronomy club. We do education activities, we do outreach activities and we also try to bridge that gap between professional astronomy, the science of astronomy, again with the public. So we incorporate things like doing a little bit of research and doing even workshops and we help as I say, we help universities in the Caribbean with their astronomy programs as well. So when they have their telescopes or they have their observant programs, you know a group of us or a couple of us will go across and help them with issues with regards to their equipment running or teaching their students how to do the observations and that sort of thing.
Isa Mohammed:So it's challenging because the Caribbean is not a very high-income area and, being a bunch of scattered islands, travel costs are extremely high. So because of that we don't get to do activities across the Caribbean as much as we would like. So we tend to focus in Trinidad and Tobago and when we get the opportunity we do something on the other islands. But it's been a very rewarding effort and pursuit so far, one of the big things that I've been able to get done recently coming back from the ASEP program with Betty Meyer, frank here and a group of us who went down to Chile.
Isa Mohammed:There's a big focus there on their indigenous astronomy, so they very much understand the Atacamanian people, their view of the stars, their view of the cosmology, their constellations and the patterns they see in the sky.
Isa Mohammed:They see the dark shapes in the Milky Way as their figures, as opposed to connecting dots among the brighter stars. They actually have a very different cosmology and so, being inspired by what I saw there how widespread it was, how much the San Pedro de Atacama, where they had this celebration of their constellations and their local astronomy pretty much everywhere I took that back to Trinidad with me and I was able to dig up quite a bit about the indigenous astronomy from back in the Caribbean and it's something that I was able to present at our last Star Party just a week ago. 550 people at Carina Star Party 2024 spent the whole night basically stargazing and enjoying astronomy topics but was able to present that on the indigenous Amerindian astronomy from the Caribbean region and it was beautiful because it's something that nobody's had ever really seen before, and to be able to take those stories that were recorded in academic papers or books and bring them back to life was very gratifying.
Bill McGeeney:Isa, you mentioned that they use the darkness as the constellation they use the dark regions of the Milky Way as their constellations.
Isa Mohammed:Yes, so the shapes of the dark structures within the Milky Way, to understand that it's in the southern hemisphere, so the central part of the Milky Way is really high up in the sky, but of course the pristine darkness of the sky allows those shapes to come through. Even with a little bit of light pollution you lose all of that. So seeing those shapes is something that you could only really do under the best of skies.
Bill McGeeney:That's brilliant and it's such an opposite mode of thinking. It's very yeah, that's brilliant, that's amazing.
Isa Mohammed:It's like negative space, right? It's finding the image in the gap, right. It's flipping the thing completely inside out. When anybody else would look to the light, they look to the dark, and very fitting as well. Previous discussion on light and dark.
Bill McGeeney:So true, yeah, I love it. That's great. I look forward to reading more on that. That's excellent stuff, thank you. Thank you for sharing that, by all means. Yeah, we have an ecology, a pretty sizable ecology list tonight, and we're going to get into that in just a bit. I came across a story and found this very intriguing.
Bill McGeeney:Helen Pickles, a writer for the Telegraph, paints the International Dark Sky Reserve, the North York Moors in England, as a calming paradise of balance and tranquility. Pickles encounters something that maybe we need here, namely a dark skies officer. In this case his name was Mike Houghton and in the tiny village of Holmby, where Pickles is staying, the population of 193,. Pickles takes special note of how the purposeful exterior lighting guides the eye, careful not to afflict one's eye with overwhelming amounts of glare. The second thing Pickles notices is the ability of non-vision senses to rise up to the occasion, in her case operating every bit as effectively as her vision. Operating every bit as effectively as her vision. Pickles' hearing elevates a recognized river, water passing in the distance, a call hooting owls in the distance and a clamor of pheasants and more. One resident, paul Smith, even added that the new designation, which led the community to develop a more purposeful relationship with night has seen a surge in owl population. Smith and his daughter even started looking up at the sky with a telescope, something that they both had no interest in previously.
Bill McGeeney:I'm going to lead this prompt with a climbing analogy. I'm sure, betty Maya, maybe you feel like being a Moab. That's kind of like a rite of passage out there, right, for those of you who have sport climbs with any capacity, I think you'll be able to relate to this. If you can't, maybe you can relate to some other sport where you must rely on something exclusively to not obtain injury. And when you're starting out doing any kind of rope climbing, it takes a few months for you to get comfortable with your gear. And then, once you realize that anchor you clipped into won't break off and your harness won't give away, and your true enemy isn't really gravity but it's rather whatever's inside your head, you're overcome with an amazing sense of freedom and confidence. Pickles references heightened senses when using night vision, and I always wonder how often so many people's fear of night derives from the fact they simply haven't invested time to trust their other senses. What are your thoughts on this?
Bettymaya Foott:10,000% census. What are your thoughts on this? Ten thousand percent like I, the amount of hikes I've done by myself in the dark with like 50 pounds of backpack gear, without a headlamp and no moon like I feel so cool.
Bettymaya Foott:I feel like it's just like art as human is like we actually have had to exist in the dark for a long time and our eyes pick up contracts, especially between, like trail and rock or grass, and it's really really, if you let your eyes adjust, it takes a while. If you let your eyes adjust, it's really really amazing how comfortable it is to be moving around in the darkness. And and if you are even not super, super comfortable in the dark like it takes a while to get pretty accustomed to that Even a little bit of moonlight it's incredible how much moonlight will help you feel comfortable moving around without light, and there's not that many nights where we don't have some sort of moonlight as well. Right, so you, you have a lot of assistance from from other earth for for navigating around at night without, without your brain, headlamp.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, I've always found no problems at night. I mean, especially here in Bordeaux, it's a relatively bright when you're not around street lights. But I'll say, say this we went up to cherry springs about a couple weeks ago and it was foggy, and to me it was so cool because for the first time and I rarely experience this outside of a room that might be dark it was pitch black because of the fog, so you could only see the stars and then you couldn't see anything else. On your plane, on your horizon, and you're walking around and you're just hoping that the steps, you know there's no rock there or whatever, and that's never happened. That doesn't happen to me often, it's very rarely, and I thought that was a really unique feeling. Talk about full submerge and trying to use all of our senses to figure out what's going on.
Bettymaya Foott:Wait, how can you see the stars when there's fog though?
Bill McGeeney:That's a great question. It was low-level fog. So Cherry Springs is on a plateau and the fog was coming up out of the valley but it hadn't got above the tree line, so it was kind of like at my height.
Bettymaya Foott:Wow, you're above the clouds in Cherry Springs. Yeah, like at my height, wow you're above the clouds in cherry springs.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah right, first time in my life very cool I don't know.
Frank Turina:I think everybody just take a different spin on that. Like I think everybody has this innate fear of dark places. It's just, you know, it's evolutionary, right. It was especially when you're by yourself that sense of isolation. Isolation and not being able to have full availability of your sense of sight is just fear-inducing for most people. But I think, like most fears, it can diminish through exposure to that stimulus, right. Just like there's exposure therapy for phobias and spending more time in natural areas at night, you know, can certainly, definitely, you know, make you more comfortable in those situations.
Frank Turina:I still have, but I'm out, you know, shooting the Milky Way and stuff. I'm so hypersensitive to the sounds and you know, hearing a twig snap is enough to just, you know, I get this super adrenaline surge and things like that. So it is kind of something you have to for me. I personally just say, you know, tell myself that I'm safe, nothing's. You know, this is a safe place. I'm not going to get, you know, eaten by a mountain lion or anything like that. So, but it's a conscious thing for me. It's like I have to keep telling myself that I'm not going to get eaten by a mountain lion or anything like that, but it's a conscious thing for me. It's like I have to keep telling myself that I'm okay and I'm safe.
Frank Turina:But Sammy Yukta Manekumar did a really interesting presentation on why we're afraid of the dark and where that fear comes from, from, like a cultural and evolutionary kind of perspective. Really kind of interesting. I think it's on YouTube, if if you get a chance to take a look at it, it's pretty. I thought it was pretty interesting. Let's do dark sky right.
Bettymaya Foott:Yeah, it is. Yeah, it was an advocate meeting you. Everyone can sign up to be a dark sky advocate on dark skyorg and get invited to those monthly meetings, look at that plug.
Bill McGeeney:Look at that plug right there.
Bettymaya Foott:Yeah, I agree, I'm always scared too and I don't know if this is like a little hopey or whatever. But I also like ask permission, kind of from like the universe and the world and the land to like be out there and then kind of constantly give thanks and gratitude for the opportunity to kind of be out in nature by myself and to experience the land and experience the stars. And I find that just even that acknowledgement of like the people who have inhabited that land before and just making that acknowledgement in my mind and kind of reaching out to the universe in my brain, like just noting this, how special it is to be there, helps me feel safer. In a way, I feel more protected, isn't it?
Bill McGeeney:but I mean, isn't that that part of it is? That's why I use the climate analogy, because you never feel 100 comfortable. Comfortable when you're climbing. You always have that sense that, hey, you know, I can fly to my death. You always have that in there, but you control it, because once you realize that you have the ability to not fly to your death, you have that descent, the control is there and you're able to kind of put it in a box and put it to the side and be like I don't have to worry about this now and if something comes up I'll be aware, but I feel in control when I'm at night.
Bettymaya Foott:Exactly, and for me it's a practice of like facing fears that I take into other realms of my life, right Like being able to face a fear of being out in the darkness, I think is translatable to being able to face a fear of public speaking or appearing on a podcast with three very smart, intelligent people who you don't want to look down next to right Like.
Isa Mohammed:It's something that I think can make you a better and stronger person I'm with with, like Frank on this one that when I'm out in the dark by myself, it gets. It gets terrifying sometimes it really does. And it, and it, it. It hits you in a part of your stomach that you didn't know you had. Yeah, yeah, it's like sheer pride just just keeps me here yeah, shooting with this camera like it's just like I'm not.
Isa Mohammed:I'm not going to share pride and I'm terrified because, as you said, the other senses get heightened, right? So you hear everything, everything, everything, and then everything becomes like what is that and what is that?
Bill McGeeney:Once. I'm once I'm at a buck huffing like towards the edge of the field and that was probably the one time that I was a little terrified. I can do pretty well with coyotes and stuff like that, but that buck that I couldn't figure out what his plan was.
Frank Turina:I was a little nerve wracking. I had a similar experience in Rocky Mountain National Park. I was by myself taking some Milky Way shots and was at the end of this dirt road and I was setting up and getting ready. I was kind of busy so I wasn't really thinking about, you know, being out there by myself. And and then I started hearing. I can't, couldn't even describe what I was hearing. It was these clomping hoofs and I started you know I didn't realize at the time that that's what it was but and I heard this snorting and I was like I don't know what that is.
Bill McGeeney:It's probably 20 feet tall. I was really freaked out.
Frank Turina:I mean, that was probably the. I was like, okay, what do I do? But I just kind of ignored it. I did my breathing exercises and just kind of got through it and I, as I was leaving, I turned on my headlights and there were probably 150 elk maybe a hundred meters from me. That was what I was hearing all night. And I turned on my red headlamp and I couldn't see them, you know. And but when I turned on my headlights to leave, it was like this massive herd of elk. So I remember thinking like I don't know if I'm going to make it home, but if I don't, at least you know I died doing something I love. So but yeah, so I think it is, I do get those, you know, you get those adrenaline surges kind of innately, it just happens, and then you kind of have to rationalize my way through it, Kind of okay, I'm not in any danger here.
Isa Mohammed:One of the best things about our stop party when we have new people who haven't been there before well, they don't know and we don't tell them is that where we do it, the area where we do it in Shagaramas, there are howler monkeys right living all around, and in the morning, just at the crack of dawn, when the sky gets light, they all start up with their sounds. And if you've never heard a howler monkey before, hearing hundreds of them surrounding you in the jungle is a visceral experience.
Bill McGeeney:I will People get panicked. I'll have to look it up. Isa the howler monkeys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they sound like just thousands of people. I will people get panicked.
Bettymaya Foott:I'll have to look it up Isa, the holomonkeys, yeah, yeah, they sound like just thousands of people being like murdered, which is like screaming bloody murder it's like hell, I was screaming it's like like all the orcs of Mordor are about to charge these poor monkeys are so excited. Isa, I'm gonna go into that so badly, because it's easier to be there and inter-experience this with you oh man, that sounds great.
Bill McGeeney:Alright, well, moving to the CBC story from here, we have an interesting piece on how light pollution is taking over Yellowknife. Yellowknife, a city in Canada's Northwest Territories, as many of you know, is a premier winter tourist destination for all things, from dog sledding to gazing up at the northern lights. And in that audio piece, producer Andrew Hines utilized an audio, or attempted to utilize an audio demonstration of light pollution. Hines uses individually struck piano notes to simulate how the stars look under light pollution, versus a well-strung compilation of chords and random key splatters to indicate the full ambience of the Milky Way and stars. I found that to be a really interesting conceptualization, a nice audio conceptualization.
Isa Mohammed:It's interesting as you brought this one up, because just two weekends ago I was at a science symposium. We had one in Tobago, and in attendance was Dr Professor Wanda Diaz. Now she's the head of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, astronomer. She's blind, right, she's completely blind and she's an astronomer, and what she does is called sonification. So she invented and she builds these devices. She solders them herself, right, and she's blind, but she builds these devices to take the light coming out of a telescope and turn it to sound. And she shows and she demonstrates that you could analyze astronomical data and by listening to the cadence of the sound that comes out of the of the data, you could pick up things that you can't pick up just by visually looking at the, at the picture, and I'm just totally in awe of of these people who are able to take something that's completely visual, like astronomy, and make it accessible to persons who can't see. I'm just struck by the whole concept of it.
Bettymaya Foott:It's, it's amazing didn't we learn about that as well?
Bettymaya Foott:isa, aui or aura, is also doing a similar project like that that's developing a database where you can log in and all of these astronomical images are sonified and you, it's like there's like a line of where the sound's coming from and it goes down the image and so you can imagine, like you know, lower notes, mid-tones, higher notes, and you hear it as this line kind of scans the astronomical image. And it was beautiful and magical and we were tested on this. We were like what are these things? Right, we were able to kind of pick up what they were just through the sound and it was really, really cool.
Isa Mohammed:That's right. We could tell whether it was a galaxy or a star cluster just by listening to the notes. It's amazing.
Bill McGeeney:Very impressive. That's incredible. I love this story. Thank you for sharing, isa.
Bill McGeeney:As we roll into our ecology segment tonight, it's important to keep a little tidbit in mind. This comes from Noema Magazine. Humans are not immune to the effect of sky brightening. We have become anxious somniac, blinded by screens and our plights. To be productive and stay relevant in a sleepless economy, we routinely overdose on artificial light and deny ourselves darkness. Excessive wakefulness in humans is linked to cancers, cardiovascular disease, hormone dysfunction, obesity, depression and diabetes, among a growing number of other physical and mental disorders. That all came from Noema Magazine, and now this leads us to our One Health Study note. This month from the Journal of Sleep Research, a study on 247 Dutch children aged 11 to 13 years found that the light intensity and timing of light exposure and the duration of such exposure all leads to prolonging the onset of sleep and or a reduction in the sleep duration. Essentially, the study reinforces the circadian need that's found in other recent studies. It suggests a bright daytime followed by a dark nighttime environment for optimal sleep health.
Bill McGeeney:Before we jump into ecology, I just want to remind folks that if you're interested in reading any of the articles we have on this show, you can head over to our website, lightpollutionnewscom, where we have a full listing of articles, this very show script, and you can also head over to our Reddit page, r slash light pollution news, for some interesting stuff that I post just randomly. For instance, there's a great article that I did include this month's show, but it's very, very, very intriguing as it pertains to how birds are impacted by artificial light at night. Highly recommend jumping over there and checking it out. You can also follow us over on Instagram at lightpollutionnews, or LinkedIn at lightpollutionnews, and we are over on TikTok lightpollutionnews as well, kicking off our ecology segment tonight.
Bill McGeeney:Sadly, as I'm sure many of you have heard, and I'm sure you three have definitely heard, flacco, the Eurasian eagle owl that was let loose by vandals from Central Park Zoo in February of 2023, has passed, and since that time Flacco lived a high life, capturing the imagination of residents and media. Lamont did a feature on Flacco, hoping to gain some kind of Disney inspiration for a future production from the owl. A late-night TV host, seth Meyers, even did a segment on Flacco. Flacco became a sought-after site for birders and visitors alike, and that was until a few weeks ago when the owl had an unfortunate run-in with a building on West 89th Street on the night of February 23rd. Run-in with a building on West 89th Street on a night of February 23rd. Flacco represents just one of the astounding 250,000 birds estimated to die in New York City each year.
Bill McGeeney:Well, new York State Senator Brad Hoylman Siegel announced on February 27th that the proposed Bird Safe Buildings Act in New York State will be renamed the Feathered Lives Also Count Act, otherwise known as the Flacco Act. Starry Sky advocates should take note there is a companion piece of legislation which is not in the same bill, the Dark Sky Protection Act. Therefore, it will not have a cute feathery champion to help sharp it along through legislation. I've already spoken before about the difficulties of passing some bird safe legislation or some ordinances in that case, of passing some bird safe legislation or some ordinances in that case. Here we have two separate bills split apart versus unified ordinance in Palo Alto that included a dark sky component. Which has a better chance of success? Or do both of them or do none of them. Is it better to split out those pieces?
Frank Turina:I think it's always better to have a charismatic bag of fauna to support your cause, right? I mean, I think that's clearly the one issue that New York has that will favor. You know, the fact that they disconnected the nice guy bill from the owl is unfortunate, because I think that is definitely a in in success of any kind of political effort like that. But, yeah, there's, there's much to be said about having a good fuzzy, you know, feathery spokesman for your cause oh yeah, I was just saying I think as well as I start to say advocates.
Bettymaya Foott:A lot of times when we're trying to fight for policy solutions, we're like Lucien and promoting dark skies. We kind of try to just get the number 100%, this is going to solve everything, all of our lights are going to be way better and then everything falls short. Right, because that is ideal, but in today's political climate and world is not always achievable. So I think potentially, having things split out and going chipping away right, slowly but surely, some of these smaller issues that will have a big impact, that are politically viable, to me seems like the more sensible solution, as opposed to the the palo alto ordinance, which in an ideal world we would love to pass.
Bill McGeeney:But everything all at once, it can sometimes be too much and overwhelming for people maybe I don't know, maybe you need to have a mascot, like we have a dark sky man or something we talked about having a mascot for dark side.
Bettymaya Foott:I kind of think a firefly would be cute.
Bill McGeeney:There we go. Yeah, I like that.
Bettymaya Foott:I think you want a firefly. Would be cute, I don't know. Yeah, I agree.
Bill McGeeney:Okay, all right, I will add, if you are a New York resident, you can actually go to where the bills are, which is LinkedIn, is the show over on the website, and you can voice support for the bill right from the New York Senate's website, which is pretty neat. So, staying in the avian world, a study from Omas Norvika found that resident birds, that is, birds which do not migrate in the case of study of the great tit, increase their winter foraging activity when, in presence of artificial light. Researchers set up artificially lit stations in a forested area and recorded daily activity in December and February at various locations up to 60 degrees north latitude. The northernmost locations saw foraging activity begin several hours prior to sunrise, while the lower latitude locations saw foraging activity start only minutes before sunrise.
Bill McGeeney:Have you guys ever heard of light pulling? We see this when we're down Florida. Get to watch people shoot off the pier and they get to fish until, like I think, about 10 or 11 at night and they put giant lamps in the water to kind of lure fish. Well, the marine tourism industry has come up with an approach to guarantee experiences such as shark sightings to paying customers. It goes like this Shine bright lights deep into the water, which attracts plankton, which attracts fish and then attracts whale sharks and manta rays. Apparently, according to the article in Oceanographic, the approach is so successful that they now offer multiple light pooling excursions all week long and multiple times during the night.
Bill McGeeney:Before I open this one up, there's even a consumer side that I just want to speak briefly. That actually goes and puts in accent lighting for your dock and your yacht and your boats, so that way you can light up everything underwater while you're out there in the water. So light pulling in some ways seems to be what the tourism industry wants, because they actually get to have results, and the other ways it seems to be what the consumer wants, because it makes stuff look cool. What do we feel about this? Like? We clearly have a form of light pollution that I think most people wouldn't understand.
Frank Turina:Yes, I just kind of.
Frank Turina:What brings this brings to mind is I lived in Florida when I was younger for a year and and I remember the shrimpers using shrimp lights to attract shrimp and catch shrimp at night, whenever we're thinking like you know that kind of an interesting way to to make sure that you have your, your catch.
Frank Turina:There's also a sport in primarily in the Ozarks, called gigging, and the fishermen go out, or the giggers go out in these little flat boats on the rivers there with super bright lights and shine the lights in the water so they can see the fish in the water and then use kind of like a harpoon or a gig to catch the fish. So I think the idea is that lights of eons have been used to attract fish and help in fishing, and so this is sort of like a corollary to that. Where it's not, they may not be fishing per se, but they're still trying to attract the same species into to see, just so they can enjoy them and see them from a tourist perspective. So it's kind of the next version of something that's been going on for a very, very long time.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, I was going to say do you see a lot of that down there?
Isa Mohammed:No, actually it's not something I've seen down here in the in the Caribbean. It's not something I've seen down here in the Caribbean. In fact, thankfully, what's been working down here, at least in Trinidad and Tobago, is bioluminescence in the water as being a big attractor and differentiator. So we have these lagoons where there's a lot of the bioluminescent plankton and, again, people value these experiences and they want to be part of something special and see something special, and the bioluminescence accomplishes that. What?
Isa Mohammed:What I would say is that for communities that really depend on on on tourism, that if it's something that works and if it's something that there's a demand for and people are willing to pay for, it's going to be difficult to stop, you know, in any meaningful way, especially if it may be case.
Isa Mohammed:Well, you know, in any meaningful way, especially if they made the case. Well, you know we're not actually fishing or hunting or harming these creatures. We're just attracting them to get a better look. So I think you know it'll be a tough one to sort of. You know, wrap your mind around how it is. Light, you know affects creatures in ways we don't understand. And going back to that article you mentioned, with the birds increasing their foraging activity, you know, in in winter, because of artificial lights, the light affects the creatures in ways that we don't understand, you know, and and because just because we think we're not harming them doesn't mean that we're not harming them. But I think it's going to be a tough sell for communities that could make a living off of this, at least so far. What I see down here in our tourism is the focus on the bioluminescence, which I think is a really good way to go.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, I wonder what they. I mean, we won't know those effects for quite a while probably.
Isa Mohammed:And I imagine that they're difficult to study as well, and even studying them, there has to be research money available for somebody to do those studies right. So yeah, it's, I don't know, might be difficult.
Bettymaya Foott:There is that global atlas of artificial light at night under the sea, which came out in 2021. In 2021. I'm sure you guys have seen it, but that's kind of a good starting point to understand how much light pollution there is already currently impacting the ocean. And it's probably already changed since 2021, but it's quite a lot. It's pretty impactful maps to look at.
Isa Mohammed:Oh, one thing that, dhanimaya, as you just that just occurred to me. So we have oil and gas industry down here and you have the offshore platforms and they produce a ton of light at night and certainly guys would go by the platform and fish because it attracts all sorts of things. So there are these, I mean there are these areas that are already existing, that are already doing this in the ocean. You know, and again, sometimes these things are out of sight, out of mind, but you do see them on the light pollution atlas, you look at it and you can see them in the middle of the ocean and these big glows. I guess it's something that you know it's not really thought of very often.
Bettymaya Foott:And in like Taiwan and places like that, where they do. I don't know if it's squid boats, I think it's squid or they they attract them for for large-scale fishing, and or advocates from those areas have sent images of the night sky in those areas and they're like bright green or like just different colors. It's almost like apocalyptic, you know of light people are using for fishing, and I think it's in the south china sea, really, really wild, oh right, and I don't know why it's green, but I remember even I was in california and I was taking photos of bioluminescence in the sea and I thought the sun was rising, but it it was a squid boat coming up on the horizon.
Bill McGeeney:Wow.
Bettymaya Foott:Yeah.
Frank Turina:Oh man, bill, I remember one of the studies we talked about on one of the other times I was on really showed that development along the coast has pretty drastic effects on biological communities just offshore. So you know, like the map show that Betty Meyer was talking about, you know a large percentage of coastal areas, the aquatic or marine environments are definitely affected by the light pollution that we're seeing on the coast environments are definitely affected by the light pollution that we're seeing on the coast, yeah, and I think that part kind of would make more sense, I think, to people in general, because they already have turtle ordinances, right.
Bill McGeeney:Like when you're along the coast, like you already know that there's some things that, in the case the studies you're talking about, frank I think it was talking about birds and how they foraged but the actual underwater ecology which, like isa you said, you know, a lot of us don't have any idea. We don't, we don't know what goes on down there and and I'm sure a marine biologist be able to enlighten a lot of us on it, but it's not common knowledge, right, and we just know that we can manipulate activity, which is what light does at night. For you know ecology.
Frank Turina:So yeah, there was some study. It may not have been on the podcast, but I remember reading that the researchers found different biological communities in the benthic regions on the floor of the ocean, just off of like in estuaries and just off the coast of developed areas, and so they saw differences in plankton movement and between like lit areas and non-lit areas. So they're starting they're definitely have documented sort of biological and ecological effects of light pollution in the water column all the way down to the benthic zone and in areas that are near developed coastal areas.
Bill McGeeney:We can move on to an article from Animal Behavior, and it appears that artificial light at night increased both activities and lifespans of wasps, the wasp in question of Venturia canisens Specifically. These denied activities increased under the presence of simulated artificial light. Sky glow and the activities include feeding in the egg lay, and so these wasps are diurnal creatures, which means they have a similar adherence to a night and day framework like ourselves. Light traps also made an appearance this month, and we had an article the previous month on light traps looking at crop pests and specifically the fall army worm. These moths are native to the Americas and have begun to reach out to Africa, asia and Australia, and they're really effective at flying long distances or migrating long distances. So in this article in insects, it is found that the species of moss is highly sensitive to blue light, and therefore they're recommending to use blue light traps as an alternative to spraying pesticides. How do we feel about light traps? This is a tricky one, I think.
Isa Mohammed:I mean it's interesting because it's as opposed to using pesticides, which are the greatest things in the world either. But then you tend to think that these light traps, they don't choose which creature gets attracted to them, it's indiscriminate. So you go, get all the good bugs and the bad bugs, and probably what you're after is like a very few ones that are damaging to your crops, but what you're going to end up getting is a whole slew of them that might even be important and, again, in ways that we don't understand, or probably, in some cases, in ways that we do understand. So I I have a concern about, you know, the indiscriminate nature of it. And then just a thought popped into my head that you know one of the reason, one of the reasons of this is that light lighting has become cheap. Right, it's. It's very cheap to deploy an led, a bright led bulb, to to solve a lot of problems that you know hundreds of thousands of dollars solve all of our problems.
Isa Mohammed:you, Issa yeah everything, every problem is solved by this big, great LED light bulb, but I would be concerned about the indiscriminate nature of it. Not to say that I understand how they work very well, but just based on the article.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, I think that's where I personally fall as well. You know, I understand the threat of pesticides and if we could minimize what kind of chemicals are put into crops and food and whatnot. But killing everything for what purpose?
Isa Mohammed:Yeah, like if you damage the population of pollinators, right, that's massive, right If you you know. So I'm not saying that it will. I mean best they do studies and really determine what gets caught and what doesn't. But if you do something that ends up damaging the population of pollinating insects, that's shooting yourself in the foot, I think.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, and I guess the trade-off. You would have to look at the benefit of how much of the pesticides are impacting proportional amounts of creatures as well. Right, there'll be cost benefits. See what the difference is. Interesting stuff.
Bill McGeeney:And on a plant, we have a study out of urban ecology that looked at how light affects how moths perceive plants. Specifically, the Hoth moth's assessment of nighttime flower and leaf color was found to be accurate in most cases, but not in all, and there are three conditions that they used. It was the 5,000 Kelvin LED, mercury vapor lighting and high-pressure sodium. In the world of mammals, artificial light appears to have slowed the activity of single striped grass mice, and artificial light at night appears to also be affecting the Indonesian primate, the spectral tarsiers. In a study in Folio Primatologica, the tarsiers slept at lower heights, implemented fewer vocalizations and ended up foraging longer into the night when exposed to artificial light. We have just a few more articles before we wrap up tonight and before we get to them I want to give my guests a chance to plug themselves. Isa, where can people learn about all the great stuff you guys are doing down in? Is it Trinidad or is it Yep?
Isa Mohammed:Okay, Trinidad and Tobago Twin Island Republic at the southern end of the Caribbean chain of islands. To find out more about what we're doing, our primary point of contact right now is through our Facebook group. So on Facebook, that's Karina C-A-R-I-N-A.
Bill McGeeney:Has anything new come down the pipe for you guys?
Isa Mohammed:No, we just came off our biggest event of the year actually, which was the StopRTE last week. But what we're looking forward to is we have a few public nights at the Vela Observatory, which is this facility we have set up for public viewing through a 20-inch telescope, so people could look forward to that coming out soon.
Bill McGeeney:Excellent, excellent, pidima, you are an amazing photographer. Thank, you. I'm very envious of places all three of you but I'm very envious of people who are able to exist in places with stars, because I feel like it's so easy to take great shots when Mother Nature is giving you such great canvases to work with.
Frank Turina:That's not saying that's not saying like you don't do a lot of work.
Bill McGeeney:But you know, I guess you want to put your dark sky plug here. Where do people learn more about you or what you're doing, or just dark sky in general, and how do they go down that path of learning more?
Bettymaya Foott:Yeah Well, thanks, bill, and it's definitely hard to take a bad picture of the stars over beautiful mountains or canyons and red rocks and saguaros. So come hang out with us down here sometime, but I'm glad we can still get out and see the stars above the clouds in Cherry Springs State Park. So there's no way people can find me. I probably am the most active on Instagram and it's just happening right now, so that's where I'll share my most up to date escapades and photos.
Bettymaya Foott:I do have a website that I really need to update. People want to support me on there as well. I have prints available at bettymaefacom and for people who are interested in getting involved in with the Dark Sky International efforts, darkskyorg is a great place to start. If you go to who we are on our menu and then go to advocates, you can just sign up there to become an international dark sky advocate and kind of get more involved with actually, you know, working on making changes in your community, city, town, state, nation, wherever you are to have better lighting in your communities.
Bill McGeeney:Frank, it's always my pleasure to have you on the show. What would you like to plug today?
Frank Turina:I always enjoy being on, Bill. Thanks a lot again for having me. My website is nightskyresourcecenterorg, with just my random writings about dark skies and some resources. If anybody's interested in learning more, you can also link to my site that has my astrophotography, my deep sky stuff and my Milky Way photography. There's a link there to that. I'm also pretty active on Instagram. It's at Frank Torina. I'm kind of taking a little bit of a hiatus from deep sky astrophotography right now because I'm in the market for a new scope. I'm looking for longer focal lengths so I can take pictures of smaller things like planetary nebula and things like that. So a little bit of a different beast. So it's going to be a learning curve there and I think it'll be a while till I get that up and running. That's where you can reach me nightskyresourcecenterorg or Instagram at.
Bill McGeeney:Frank Torino. The planetary nebula thing seems to be really popular right now. I know we had Drew Evans on and Drew, he was part of a group of four guys who discovered two new planetary nebulas.
Frank Turina:Yeah, In my opinion, my humble opinion, I think the planetary nebula are some of the most dramatically beautiful things in the night sky. They're just incredibly bright, incredibly colorful. You know, I haven't had the required focal length to take astro images of very many of them, so hopefully I'll get a bigger scope with more focal length I'll be able to to get some of those guys yeah, and and so just clarify for you at home.
Bill McGeeney:The shorter focal length is great for wide angle, but it really did get some of these, these deep sky objects. You need more length on that. I did get a good shot this winter. I got with my new rig. I got my jellyfish nebula right here in Philadelphia using a dual band filter and it came out great. That took over the course of four nights and got lucky for a good night.
Frank Turina:That's a very cool looking nebula that gets a lot of people hooked on astrophotography.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, it was fun. It was fun to see. It's fun to see the things you can do in Bordeaux. Yeah, there's a lot of things you can't do, but there are things you can do, so it's fun to push those limits. So to finish up today's show, I do have a couple of quick, interesting articles.
Bill McGeeney:First, we've talked about smart cities plenty of times. There's a clever concept that was baked into design theory at the moment, with some practical thought behind it. The company called Alloy Design Studio developed a conceptual answer to urban car charging. Simply plug your car into the streetlight pole. Wouldn't that be neat? That's a very practical solution for many urbanites who don't have a way to run a cable back to their house or garage. They don't even have a garage right. I thought that was pretty neat. Sticking with design here is a really cool one.
Bill McGeeney:In Seattle, randall Whitehead, writing for Furniture, lighting and Decor, took special notice of the purposely lit ferry terminal. The company Dark Lake Design created a modern ferry terminal utilizing soft lighting, thereby eliminating glare from both the interior and exterior of the facility. Or, as the author puts it no glare, just glow. In addition, the lighting both fits federal standards for security lighting and comes in 16% better in energy use than was allotted by code use than was allotted by code. And here's the kicker Lighting designers even focused on reducing light trespass that may enter the marine habitat to help curb the aquatic light pollution. For those of you whom have never visited Seattle, the city relies on a robust ferry system to get out to multiple islands and some of the western reaches of Washington state. Any thoughts on that one? I feel like you guys would have either some knowledge, insider info on that, or some thoughts on that one.
Frank Turina:I think in terms of the street lighting systems and plug in, you know, plug in your car to the street light and charging things from that way. The last time I was at the it's called the Street and Area Lighting Conference run by the Illuminating Engineering Society conference run by the illuminating engineering society everybody was talking about smart street light systems. It's the the coming wave. It's gonna be here soon and they're gonna be hooking up lots of different functionality to these street light systems, including what they what's called Li-Fi or light fidelity. It's basically Wi-Fi using, like infrared and LED light, so you'll be able to get your cellular service or your Wi-Fi service through the street light system. So things like that are right on the horizon.
Frank Turina:It was the major discussion at the conference and so you know, I think plugging in a vehicle or something like that to the lighting system is just the tip of the iceberg. We're going to see lighting systems and what that's going to do to, you know, the effectiveness of lights. I guess it remains to be seen, but it's all being combined with other systems now.
Bill McGeeney:I like the idea of being able to plug in. Just, you know, here in the urban area you see so many people who want to go electric, but there's no point for many people. So it solves problems. And also I noticed it's a good excuse when you have a smart lighting system to put in a whole bunch of cameras. That's a really exciting thing too. That goes on of cameras. That's a really exciting thing too. That goes on.
Bill McGeeney:We'll wrap up tonight sharing on some of the hard work put out by all the volunteers who helped create the Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary. A whopping 2.5 million acre area sits in Southeast Oregon. Big round of applause for the folks' hard work in Bern, switzerland, as the 105-kilometer Gantrish dark sky zone becomes a reality, and also want to cheer on people in one of the most beautiful states on the East Coast, the newly formed Blackwater Falls State Park Foundation in Tucker County, west Virginia. The first project on the newly formed board is to obtain an international dark sky park designation. I've had many great moments in Mountain State and wish them all the best.
Bill McGeeney:I want to thank you at home for hanging out with us this month. I also want to thank my wonderful guests. It's always fun to have some new faces and some old faces, and so thank you guys. Thank you, issa. Thank you, betty, maya Frank. Guys, I'd love to have you on, I and so thank you guys. Thank you, isa. Thank you, betty, maya Frank. Guys, I'd love to have you on. I'd love to see you guys back on some time. As a reminder, light Pollution News is recorded on the last Sunday of every month and released on the first Monday of every month. You can find all the details included in this show, and much more, by visiting lightpollutionnewscom. The script will be posted there, along with all today's news links, and once more, I'm your host, bill McKinney. Thank you for listening. Remember to only shine the light where it's needed. Thank you, guys.
Bettymaya Foott:Thanks, Bill.
Isa Mohammed:Great Thanks.
Bettymaya Foott:Thanks so much, Bill. Well, I just would like to say that Isa and Frank and I all met at the ASAP for Astronomy Educators Ambassadors what does that stand for?
Isa Mohammed:Astronomy on Chile Educator Ambassador Program.
Bettymaya Foott:Astronomy Educator Ambassador Program in Chile. Where does the Chile part? Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program.
Bill McGeeney:Sounded like a blast guys. You guys drank a little too much wine while looking at those stars.
Bettymaya Foott:And it's a great program that helps bring people from all over the world down to Chile to learn about the incredible astronomy that is happening there and the global investments in way to continue supporting the astronomy and the work that's happening down there. So if anyone's interested in learning more about the program, they can check out astroambassadorscom and apply.
Bill McGeeney:Frank, when you came on the first time, I think you had just done that and still I'm very envious. So, yeah, you guys get to see some pristine skies. That's great.
Frank Turina:Yeah, and I think the skies were amazing, except we were in one of the darkest places in the world darkest night skies in the world and everybody told us that they only had about five cloudy nights for the entire year. And guess what? Guess which night we pressed to be here. So we are here. It's like knowing that they had one of the best night skies in the world above us that was sucked in with clouds was a little frustrating, but it was still an amazing experience to see the telescopes that we got to see up close and personal. Hear from the astronomers that were doing research on those instruments go up to 16,000 feet almost to get to see some of the radio telescopes that were in the Atacama Desert. It was a fantastic experience and if anybody's interested in that type of thing, as Betty Maya mentioned, definitely check out their website and I encourage you to apply.
Isa Mohammed:Betty Maya, one of the most interesting things about Chile is their light ordinance. They had just passed when we visited they had just passed a sweeping national ordinance for light pollution control because they recognize, I guess, as a country and as a people, the importance that astronomy plays for them. I believe some 70% of the world's astronomy infrastructure will be installed in Chile by the end of the decade. So, recognizing that and the importance that astronomy plays and the importance of the dark skies, they passed sweeping, very sweeping light control ordinance and I think it's really sort of like a model that other places could look to.
Bettymaya Foott:It's big business. What's cool about the ordinance, too, is previously they had lighting ordinances around the observatory areas right around the observatory areas. Right, Because they recognize the importance for astronomy and research. But the new light pollution law addresses the entire country because it now recognizes that light pollution is impactful on way more than just astronomy, and we covered a lot of that today, so that was also really cool to see as well.
Frank Turina:And on the cloudy night that we had at these two observatories, sarah Tololo and Sarah Pachone, we, as avid photographers, we went out to take pictures anyway, even though it was cloudy, and we all sort of commented on the amount of light pollution you could see from there. There were a lot of light domes lighting up the clouds, who were sitting down close to ground level, and we were all kind of struck by the fact that even here, where it's some of the best guys in the world and you have the most advanced, sophisticated astronomical instruments in the world, they still have to deal with light pollution. So you can't really get away from this issue. It's kind of cropping up everywhere.
Bill McGeeney:Wow, that's a great way to end it. Thank you guys, really appreciate it. Thanks, thank you so? Much.