Light Pollution News
The path to neighborhood friendly starry night solutions begin with being a more informed you!
Ever wish you could see the stars at night? Well, here's your chance to join the conversation around how we can create a sustainable and equitable night that benefits people as much as it does ecology.
Light Pollution, once thought to be solely detrimental to astronomers, has proven to be an impactful issue across many disciplines of society including ecology, crime, technology, health, and much more!
Each month, Bill McGeeney is joined by upwards of three guests to help walk you through the news around this broad topic of light pollution/the sustainable night.
Interested in learning more? Check out resources and more at LightPollutionNews.com. Light Pollution News also maintains a running ecology news list. Find us on social media (Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Facebook).
Light Pollution News
November 2024: Looking Up Matters!
[Editorial Correction: AST sent up the Blue Bird satellites incorrectly noted as Blue Walker satellites]
This month, host Bill McGeeney is joined by Kevin Beare, whom you may know better as CapeMayAstro, Michael Rymer from Dark Sky makes a return visit, and the always insightful, Frank Turina of the Night Sky Resource Center joins us once again!
See Full Show Notes, Lighting Tips and more at LightPollutionNews.com. Like this episode, share it with a friend!
Bill's Picks:
- SpaceX launches 5 giant BlueBird smartphone satellites for AST SpaceMobile, lands rocket, Avery Truman, Space.com.
- An Innovative New Approach to Light Pollution Measurement by Drone, Drone.
- Hit the lights: Mets outfit Citi Field for electric light shows, Associated Press.
- Power Outages in the Southeast US Following Helene, NOAA.
- Hit the lights: Mets outfit Citi Field for electric light shows, Associated Press.
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About Light Pollution News:
The path to sustainable starry night solutions begin with being a more informed you.
Light Pollution, once thought to be solely detrimental to astronomers, has proven to be an impactful issue across many disciplines of society including ecology, crime, technology, health, and much more!
But not all is lost! There are simple solutions that provide for big impacts. Each month, Bill McGeeney, is joined by upwards of three guests to help you grow your awareness and understanding of both the challenges and the road to recovering our disappearing nighttime ecosystem.
light pollution news, november 2024. Looking up matters today, one man in new zealand is attempting to bring standards to the space economy. The lights go dim over a storm ravaged southern towns. And wouldn't it be interesting if you could build your own sky quality meter? Well, we have instructions included in today's show. I couldn't be more thrilled about this month's panel, including Kevin Bearer, whom you may know better as Cape Maestro. Michael Reimer from Dark Sky makes a return visit and the always insightful Frank Torino joins us once again. You'll definitely want to listen to this episode of Light Pollution News coming right up.
Bill McGeeney:Welcome to another Light Pollution News. I'm your host, bill McGeaney, glad to have you joining us as we explore these stories and the news as it relates specifically to the topic of light pollution. For you, new to the show, light Pollution News is a twice-monthly show where I bring on three great guests to help walk you through the month's news. Light Pollution News aims to build engagement and conversation around the topics affecting light pollution and further grow awareness to help us make the best decision for a better tomorrow. And for you, the regular listener, I know you love the content we're putting out here. Have you ever thought about subscribing to our mailing list. It's a once-a-month release that features the top stories that we think you need to see each month. I also include articles in there that we may not cover on the show, and you also get access to the whole catalog of news that has come through that month. Oh, and one more bonus You'll receive access to listen to both monthly shows right out of the gate, so there's no more waiting two weeks before you hear the second half of this show. That's a pretty good mailer, right? We think so, so why not sign up today? Scroll over to lightpollutionnewscom, slash contact to sign up and finally, before we start things off, check to make sure you're subscribed to Light Pollution News, the show, the actual show you're listening to right here via whatever podcast player you're listening from. If not, hit the subscribe button and be sure to follow and say hi to us over at LinkedIn, instagram, facebook, tiktok and more. We love to hear back from you, our listener. After all, this is why we put the show together, so definitely give us a shout out.
Bill McGeeney:All right, how about we get the show in a row, guys? I have a feeling that this will be a real fun show. I have a fun lineup here. Some of them may be unfamiliar faces to you at home, but at least one, maybe two, are very familiar faces.
Bill McGeeney:So, starting off, I'm always thrilled to have a return guest, especially grateful that he agreed to jump in on very short notice as I needed to reschedule one of our original guests, dr Samantha Lawler, who actually had commitments with the UN. She was doing some work with the UN this month so she asked to you know like she was a little bit busy and she didn't want to be overloaded. So I said, okay, I'll do my best to kind of swap her out. And, frank Frank Torino, you jumped in here last second. I really, really appreciate that and plus, it's always good to have you on the show, man, it's such a good time. I want to welcome back Mr Frank Torino, if you're not familiar with him, because he's been on three, two episodes, three episodes, I'm not sure I don't believe that yeah.
Bill McGeeney:This might be your third 15 plus years of working with the US National Park Service. In-depth knowledge of what some maybe not the ones here would call lesser known pollutants that affect park ecology right, and, of course, your expertise, Frank, is stemming from your adjunct role at the University of Denver, where you actually educate students on environmental policy, so educating the next crop on how to create a better tomorrow from a policy standpoint. So, Frank, last time we spoke, you had massive fires around you. How is life out there now? Is it a little quieter? It was.
Frank Turina:The early part of the summer was fairly wet. We didn't have much fire risk, and then in July the rain stopped and things really dried out, and so we had a couple of months where the fire risk was much higher than we like. And we live in the I can't remember the organization that ranks areas for high fire risk, but we live in the number one in the state and number three in the country for fire risk, so everybody's on high alert around here. Anytime there's even a small brush fire, people tend to react, and the last time we were on I think I was going to be an audience member for back in July and I had to bail because we had a fire about three miles away and the wind was picking up and it was heading our direction, and so we ended up evacuating for just a few hours. We came back after they had gotten the fire under control.
Bill McGeeney:Frank, how do you even prepare for something like that? Do you guys have some contingency plans now that you've had it so close and you lucked out? Thank God you lucked out, yeah.
Frank Turina:Yeah, you know it's, in a way, it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when. Right, in a way it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when. And so we do. My wife and I were laughing because we have a go bag that's sort of there by the door that we could just grab and there's really nothing in it. So everything is computerized, everything is on the cloud, everything is you know. So there's really nothing that we feel like, oh, we have to have this document or we have to have, you know, something that they, you know, to take with us. So our, our, we're not encumbered by much, we just kind of get in the car and take off, so, and then we have some places that we can stay down in Denver. For, you know, if we're, if it's an extended evacuation.
Bill McGeeney:Well, that's so, if nothing ever happens, so if that's just a random fear. You know and you're prepared. It sounds like you guys are ready. I mean, that has to be the most stressful nightmare a person could have is knowing, at any moment, everything, all of your. It's not just you know your digital stuff, right, frank, it's the little things that you've kept all of your life.
Frank Turina:Exactly yeah, and we've sort of come to the conclusion or accepted that the most important thing is for us to get out, and we're not going to mess around and wait until we get evacuated or try to find something that we think we need. As soon as we get the feeling that we need to get out, we're just going to take off and, like we keep saying, nothing is more important than us getting out safely.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah Well, since last year Owen as a guest we've seen a solar eclipse, auroras, and now there's a comet. I don't know if we can cram anything more into the short timeframe between bookends here. Frank, what's next year before you come?
Frank Turina:on next time. What's going to happen? This has been a fantastic year, you know I, I feel you know so I. The first time we had the.
Frank Turina:The Aurora is where everybody, you know, got all the great pictures, and it was all over Instagram and social media. I was a little bit. I didn't get any images. I was really kind of bummed because over the years since I've been doing astrophotography and night sky photography, there have been dozens of days where everybody said, oh, the auroras are going to be spectacular. You know, this is the day and I'd stay up and I'd go out and they'd be not that great, he's barely visible or he could barely get a little glow in my camera. And so when it happened again the first time this year, I was like do I fall for this again? And so I didn't go out. And the next day it was like, everywhere, right, it was the aurora of a lifetime. And so I was really kicked myself. And so this time, when they, when they announced that it was going to be a good Aurora, I did get out and get some images. So, yeah, it turned out. Really it was fun.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, we, we had a Nico Carver on last month and he's like Bill, how come you haven't been able to see it? You've had plenty of chances at Literally every time we've had the Aurora I've been in a place that's been under the thickest cloud cover you could ever possibly find. But we did catch it. We finally caught it. Actually, we prepared for it. We had kind of like a day contingency plan where we were keeping an eye on one that might pop up later what two weeks ago? And we had a contingency plan ready. The moment we saw that was going to pop, we got in the car and drove to where there might be some dark skies, and I didn't really need to go dark skies because the whole way up yeah, kevin, I see you nodding over there the whole way up 476 here in Eastern PA, it was just popping left and right, which is very, very cool.
Frank Turina:And the comet, I have to just say left and right, which is very, very cool. And the comet I have to just say I know I think we'll talk about it a little bit later on too, but the comet was is just amazing. Hold the thought, see, hold the thought.
Bill McGeeney:Okay, yeah, that was just good, good, we'll get to it. Well, let's, let's move on. And we have another one making his return visit, mike, I think it was this time last year. Michael reimer from dark sky and mike, what do you do all for dark sky, because I know you do a lot. You go to presentations.
Michael Rymer:You, you know you're trying to do sales pitches to a park seven yeah, yeah, I, I kind of wear a lot of hats for the organization ever since I, you know, was an intern starting in 2020, you know, kind of on the engagement side of things, but now you know I'm on. I'm kind of on the engagement side of things, but now you know I'm on, I'm on the program side of the organization where, you know and this all kind of happened from a grant that our organization got in from New Mexico intentional, focused work in the state and then expand to the southwest region of the united states to kind of, you know, bring people closer together, build a coalition of stakeholders with vested interests not just with dark skies directly, but, you know, ecological organizations, energy and all these things really start making some work to bring people to the table and start talking about positive change. And one of those big things right now is kind of working on updating the state legislation in New Mexico about the night sky protection act. So it's a 25 year old piece of legislation that we're currently working with the statewide chapter in New Mexico on.
Michael Rymer:But even bigger picture than that, for me specifically, yeah, it's bringing dark sky groups together to kind of hear about what everybody's working on, share some ideas, maybe get some interstate cooperation. And then a lot of my day-to-day is working on the International Dark Sky Place program, focusing on projects in the West and Southwest. So I have about 50 in a pipeline in this wonderful part of the state. You know, just to myself, or, excuse me, the country and I mean it's it's got the highest concentration of certified places in the world and that list is rapidly growing, especially in Colorado, where I live and, frank, you know this as well as I do live in there. So big things happening in this part of the country for sure.
Michael Rymer:It sounds like a horrible job, so what you end up doing is driving to the most amazing places in the United States and try and certify them.
Michael Rymer:essentially, that's what we tried. I mean, I would love to be a traveling salesman, no doubt about it. A lot of it is, most of it's really just work from home, but every once in a while I can get out there on the road and actually go. I went to the Grand Canyon Star Party this summer and gave a presentation during their week-long thing. So that's pretty cool because they just celebrated a huge milestone in reaching 90% compliance for their park certification this year. So they got their certification five years ago and at the five-year mark for a park you're supposed to have 90% of your lights compliant and they reached that 90%. And they are a park with 5,000 fixtures, so that's a pretty big deal. So that was cool to celebrate with them.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah yeah, that's big news. Congratulations to everyone over there at Dark Sky.
Michael Rymer:Absolutely.
Bill McGeeney:Hard work there. I was thinking, Mike, if you were doing traveling sales, you could probably get in bed with a really good lighting company out there. Sell some good fixtures along with it. Yeah, here's a good one, here's a bad one, and hey you know why we're going to go to the dark sky and I got these brand new, these really good, certified Try these out.
Kevin Beare:I think he needs a driver. I'll take it, you can concentrate and I'll bring my telescopes. Let's do it.
Bill McGeeney:That voice you hear that is the third voice that I haven't brought to light yet is someone who some of you may be aware of and some may not be. I want to welcome Kevin Bear to Bear. Right, I'm saying it right.
Kevin Beare:Bear like the animal.
Bill McGeeney:Yes, All right, kevin Bear to the show. Kevin Bear is if you follow him on TikTok or Instagram reels, you'll know him by Cape May Astro and he does an amazing job I mean seriously amazing job with sidewalk astronomy in the town, in the community of Cape May. Kevin, we share a little bit of the origin story here. Why don't you tell me what brought you to doing sidewalk astronomy?
Kevin Beare:Yeah, you can see the shirt and tie on right now is because I just got back from unfortunate house call. I'm a funeral director here in Cape May and you know it's, it's part of my therapy, so to speak. But anyway, I began my yeah.
Bill McGeeney:I guess, kevin, that's probably an emotional toll when you're a funeral director, right, because the whole time you're probably someone that people are at least you know they're always sad, right, but they're also probably kind of leaning on you for guidance and for you know.
Kevin Beare:Well, wait till I share this story with you. It was really kind of unique. I know I might be jumping ahead, but I think it's a really good intro to what I do, but anyway, I started back in 2020. It was August, the first summer of lockdown, and I was just really, really getting tired of the lockdown. And I've always been into astronomy. My grandmother introduced me to my first meteor shower when I was eight years old, so that was dating myself, but that was back in you know, the early 70s. But anyway, I had the opportunity to have her share the beauty of the darkness, as I like to say, and saw my first meteor and I'm like one more. But anyway, from there I started investigating on Instagram and I didn't find my Stellina Observation Station, which is a company. It's a smart telescope out of France Station, which is a company. It's a smart telescope out of France.
Kevin Beare:And all of a sudden, because I was looking for, you know, telescope information and you know astronomy information all of a sudden the AI, even back then, started to populate. You know the advertising. And all of a sudden, what popped out was, you know this Bayonis Stellian Observation Station, a smart telescope which I could connect to via a cell phone or a tablet at the time, so I was able to purchase. I investigated for about three weeks. I saw that you could put this telescope. They were actually. They put it up on top of a parking lot in Las Vegas and were shooting. You know nebulas and I'm like that sounds like my cup of tea.
Bill McGeeney:That's a very good sales pitch right there.
Kevin Beare:Yeah, again, smart telescopes, they have the filter systems in already. Nico I follow I've met him before Great, great advocate for astrophotography. But my adventure started with just this lockdown and I got my first telescope and I started to use it in September. It was delivered and then it was actually coming up on my four-year anniversary. I took it use it in September. It was delivered, and then it was actually coming up on my four-year anniversary. I took it, you know, down to Cape May.
Kevin Beare:Cape May is the oldest seashore resort in the nation. We're at mile marker zero here in the beautiful town of Cape May. I was born and raised here. But anyway, I brought my Stellina downtown and I turned off of one of the streets, right across the street from Congress Hall, which is a very old, you know, building establishment here in town and very lit area, and I pulled into an empty parking spot at what's called the Victorian Motel and within like 10 seconds the manager came out and asked me like what I was doing, you know, just parking in a spot, you know, at dark, when nobody was supposed to be checking in. I just said I've got my new telescope, I'm trying it out and immediately she gets out, kathleen gets out her. You know cell phone, she shows me her. You know star app that she uses and I'm like I use that same one. So we bonded immediately. So she let me stay and within 15, 20 minutes I actually set up my telescope and I had 50 people around me and she came back outside and she said you can stay.
Kevin Beare:So that was my beginning for street corner astronomy that you know. Immediately I had in my mind that it would do just this thing. You know Galileo was doing street corner astronomy. You know, back in the 1600s. Try to prove that. You know, the earth wasn't the center of our solar system. So I'm proud to be able to say that I've been sharing the beauty and the darkness for the past years Close to 13,000 followers now. I'm just so humbled by the feedback that, again, just the fun thing about street corner astronomy is just the fact that you're surprising somebody with something that they didn't anticipate. Because my telescopes look kind of crazy. They're not your typical telescope, but they're always asking me it's like, why are you here? It's like, you know, and my immediate answer is because you're here. So it's like I could do this all day long, you know, all night long by myself, but it's wonderful being able to have people pass by with this unexpected experience of you know, sharing the beauty and the darkness.
Bill McGeeney:But it's amazing that stars bring people together. Oh yeah, the story you just mentioned about the manager coming out and be like, oh, that's cool, I got this right here. You know that that story is. I hear that a lot and it's just amazing that that starts to bring people.
Kevin Beare:It is absolutely amazing. Yeah, so I just wanted to let you know that last night I was it was almost 1230 at night, I'm by myself, in fact my 27 inch tablet just kicked down. I didn't plug it in and I was, I wasn't showing anything and all of a sudden, you know this lady walked by and I said hello to her. She turned around. She's like what are you doing? I was like, oh, I was just sharing, you know, my telescope and I showed her some pictures of my cell phone and we shared and talked and you know I shared with her I was a funeral director here in town and you know just about some things at the night sky and you're looking for new victims.
Kevin Beare:Yeah Well, this is the irony here that all of a sudden, you know, she said it's really ironic that you say that you're a funeral director because I'm here in town because my father is passing, and she shared her father's name and it was Mr Tice, who I just picked up.
Kevin Beare:So I met her last night and she went for a walk and she had she said she's shy and she doesn't speak about anybody and we had a 45 minute conversation about, you know, life and death and you know the purpose of having me being there, having a conversation, and it was a really unique experience and that happens so often, bill, I can't tell you that. You know again, my I always say that you know, my profession as a funeral director gives me more than I give it and I feel as if my telescopes are the same way that people say things to me but they're giving more than I feel, as if I'm giving them, and it's it's a really wonderful, you know match, you know to be able to share, as I like to say, the beauty in the darkness.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, what, what. What has the reception been like down there, down in Cape?
Frank Turina:May.
Bill McGeeney:Cause. Cape May is. In the summertime it's very touristy. In the fall it's very touristy. And what is it like down there?
Kevin Beare:So this is the story that's really quite unique. I've been doing this for four years and last, last evening, I had a little boy show up and I'm like I recognize you. It's like weren't you a gamer? He's like, yes, and his mom's standing there and all of a sudden I saw his sister. I'm like you're a dancer. I don't remember names, but I remember stories. So, anyway, his mom explained to me that that was the third time that they'd seen me and we've had conversation. They saw me this summer up on the promenade and you know, her son is 11 years old. So as soon as she saw me, she looked at her son, gavin, and she said it's okay, gavin, go see Kevin.
Kevin Beare:So even though it's a touristy town, people are coming to our town very, very frequently. And you know, I see that the people that come in the spring, I see the people that come in the summertime, I see the people that come in the fall for the birding, and you know they're cyclical, but you know I have an amazing following that people come up and it's like. You know I had a gentleman come up last night. It's like are you on Instagram? I was like no, but I heard you were here. I had the police, you know, who support me with my sidewalk astronomy. A gentleman and his wife stopped by and they said we were at the Cove and two police officers said do you know about Cape Measter? He's down with his telescopes. So you know I had people all the time show up that you know. They've heard about the chatter, you know it's like I had a lady in the spring, you know, drive up to me with her window down.
Kevin Beare:I was out for about three hours and she came out. You're still here and she's like everybody's talking about you at the Mad Batter. So you know, what's wonderful is that it has always been my prayer, my hope, that the conversations that we have about you know life and stars and you know the miracles that we all are. You know they're having conversations with me and they're leaving and they're going out to dinner and the conversations are continuing without me being there. So that's the gift that you know.
Kevin Beare:All of a sudden, she came and said everybody's talking about you and we've been friends ever since. I have met so many amazing people. You know again, thousands of people that you know are, are, had become really, really loyal friends. And I've never been on social media. I'm still learning, but again, the appreciation of what I'm trying to do is just bring awareness that there's such beauty in the darkness, as I like to say. It's just a really wonderful thing. But these people just keep on coming up. It's like I follow you and people stop in the middle of the street and it's really humbling. It's very fun.
Bill McGeeney:You could have fooled me about never being on social media. I think you do a phenomenal job with your social media channel. Thank you very much.
Kevin Beare:I appreciate that.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, I mean I have to stop Sometime when we're down, I have to stop over. The problem is we don't come down for the night, right, so that's always a difficult part.
Kevin Beare:Yeah, well, for the night, right, so that's always a difficult part. Yeah, well, again, it's like I've been doing more solar observations this year now that you know we've had this really nice you know, 11th year solar maximum that's created such beautiful, you know night skies that we've had. I've shot the. Actually, you know we're Cape May is like level with, you know, latitude of Washington DC, so we're mid latitudes. But you know, I shot the Aurora 13 months ago and this has been the fifth time that I've been able to share the beauty and the darkness, as I like to say, with you know the Aurora, and last Thursday, knowing that you know what happened in May was really going to happen again, I was confident in the space weather. I'm learning so much from this gentleman called Vincent Latvina, who's you know really great, he's the Astro or the Aurora guy up in Fairbanks, alaska.
Kevin Beare:I got an alert this summer saying that you know they're seeing naked eye Aurora from Washington DC and that was the night of the person meteor shower. That was August 11th and 12th and so, anyway, I'm out with my telescope, we're watching, you know meteors. You know, at midnight I get this alert and I I said that you know anybody wants to come over the bay. I'm going to shoot the Aurora and sure enough, I was able to capture a nice sub storm over there. So again, it's incredible to be able to, you know, share and again last Thursday, what was really incredible is that we had the opportunity of a lifetime because they said that that you know storm was most likely the largest in 500 years.
Kevin Beare:But you know, I put out a reel that morning and you know I shared it with almost a hundred thousand people that day. So that was just huge. And the amount of people that came up to me last night saying we saw the Aurora because of you, because I went live when it was going down and I learned about a lot about Instagram because that one reel I went and said get outside, I didn't hashtag it, I didn't put an explanation. No, music had 18,000 follows or looks at and it was two seconds long and I think it's been watched almost, you know, 24 hours so far. So it's just crazy that two seconds can turn into 24 hours for 18,000 people looking at it. It's really fun to see the awareness.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, the stars. The stars bring people together.
Bill McGeeney:It's just kind of crazy that you know we have to. We're leading into a light pollution show, talking about stars bringing people together. So I mean, it's not crazy from the fact that we're doing that, but it's crazy the fact that so many people don't have access to something that is so unified. So, yes, I want to move forward here. I want to get into our, our warm-up article, because I I know, kevin, you're going to have stuff to say and Frankie wants to say on this one.
Bill McGeeney:We had a comet, right, the comet Diazuchin-Shan A3-2023. It graced our skies this October. I actually was able to see it last night. I have these 100-millimeter pair of giant binoculars. Put those out there. I'm in my nice Portal 8, philadelphia. I was able to see it no problem, and even a star hop over to it, which I heard was a dying skill. I don't know, but in case you're wondering, zhu Jinshan actually translates to Purple Mountain, indicating the observatory of China where the actual comet was discovered, and Atlas is the corresponding observatory in South Africa, where it was either confirmed or discovered. You needed good horizons initially to catch the really bright naked eye version of this comet, but as it continued on, you didn't really need as good horizons, you just needed some binoculars and you could really make it out, and it looked phenomenal. So let's get into this. I know, kevin, I know you saw the comet. Why don't you tell me about how it looked? Did you see it off the? I guess you're looking bayside, so did you see it off the bayside?
Kevin Beare:I did. It's where I shoot the Aurora. My mom grew up right across the street where I shot the Aurora. You know, town banks, a town dating back in the whaling years, you know almost 1600s. It dates back really far.
Kevin Beare:But I was able to capture I, I, you know, saturday night I didn't see it before it. It went around the sun, I, we had clouds, so it was just, you know, luck of the draw. It came around last Saturday, you know, it was really low in the horizon and I could not see it and I just told people it's like, you know, it's like I'm pretty good at this. I've seen comets, I've shot comets before. I couldn't see it but, being determined, went out Sunday night and saw it and I had, you know, 25, 30 people with me.
Kevin Beare:I used my telescope, I was able to shoot it with my cell phone. I use a Google Pixel 8 Pro, which is amazing, and again, it was fun being able to share that for the first time. And again, the other night I was able to shoot it once again. But one of my Seastar telescopes is actually able to watch it track. So I was able to track it for 11 minutes and within that 11 minutes I mean this comet's traveling 180,000 miles per hour. It's traveling at 50 miles a second In those 11 minutes. You see these golden dots. That moving was actually 33,000 miles. It traveled in just 11 minutes.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, it's impressive. Very cool 33,000 miles it traveled in just 11 minutes. Yeah, it's impressive. This started out as a second magnitude transition, third, somewhere hovering around four. As we record this right now, it's close to four, frank. You were going to mention about seeing it too. I guess, frank, you have much better skies than we have here, even in Cape May, so your skies are first off dry.
Frank Turina:Yeah, so to the west right. So east of where I live is the gigantic light dome of Denver. Right above my house is pretty much where the light dome starts to diminish and the light the skies to the west are, you know much better. And so where the comet was was, you know, a pretty decent sky. Unfortunately, we had pretty decent sky. Unfortunately, I think the timing was a little bit unfortunate with the moon phase. We still had pretty bright skies from the almost full moon and I couldn't really see it with my naked eye just because the background, the light, the sky was so bright from the moon. But I put my camera out there and took a picture in the direction where I thought it was and I was shocked how big this comet was the length of the tail 18 million miles.
Kevin Beare:Yeah, 18 million miles, yeah.
Frank Turina:And it's like you know, 20 degrees. It's huge, it's gigantic miles and it's like 20 degrees, it's gigantic, and so it's taken up almost a quarter of the sky from the horizon and I was shocked. I had to go get a different lens so I could fit it in there. I thought NEOWISE was.
Bill McGeeney:It was Now.
Frank Turina:Neal Wise was 2020, right yeah, and in my view, that was like the best comment I could have ever dreamed of seeing. Right, and I saw this one and I was like this is just spectacular. And so I haven't had a chance to edit my images yet, but the raw images that I have right off the camera look pretty spectacular.
Bill McGeeney:And it also had the front tail too.
Frank Turina:Yeah, the anti-tail, the anti-tail, yes, the anti-tail.
Bill McGeeney:That's the technical term for it, frank.
Frank Turina:Yes, yeah, it was, and I could see that just in my regular DSLR I could see that the tail, the anti-tail, in front of the head of the comet. It was pretty spectacular. So I can't wait to find some time to do some editing on my images.
Bill McGeeney:Mike, I see you nodding your head too. Were you able to catch it?
Michael Rymer:Oh yeah, I've been catching it for the past couple weeks. I tried to catch it in the early morning somewhere just right outside of Colorado Springs and of course you're looking Frank, kind of like you said, you're looking east and you're right up on, you're looking over the front range and you're looking east and you're right up on, you're looking over the front range and you're catching those light domes like they're right in your face. So I didn't see it the morning I went to try to catch it and then, uh, last week I went out to um you know some grasslands in northeast colorado and uh, because I was certain of it that I was gonna see this thing you know, everybody else in their, in their mother, has seen it. I need to see this. So I need to go out somewhere where it's no clouds and I can look west in the evening sky and not have to deal with the mountains, of course, to be blocking my view. So I caught it out there and so that was the first round of picks.
Michael Rymer:And then now I said in the opening Bill, I'm out in North Dakota, south Dakota, wyoming, on a road trip. And so last night I went out to Teddy Roosevelt National Park and took some pictures of it against some buttes and stuff, and I plan on doing that again at night. So, yeah, I mean you can see it with your naked eye. You got to have some decent vision, of course, depending on where you are, but through the binos it looks pretty good. I even took some test shots with my iPhone Just a 10-second exposure. You don't have to have a DSLR to get a picture of this thing. That's how spectacular it is. I remember Neo-wise that was the first time I took a picture of basically anything in the night sky. And you know, looking at these pictures now, I've come a long way in four years and just excited to see something so prominent like this.
Michael Rymer:And I think what's really important about this if we can get existential about it with the theme of the show is that you know, as long as guys like Kevin and Frank, you guys are posting about it, we're posting about it at Dark Sky. Whatever gets people outside looking up. That's what matters. You know this is what gets people excited about astronomy. I mean, that's what you know we're all here for. That's why we have this love, and you know to tie it back into what I do for Dark Sky, though we're definitely more conservation-minded, even though, of course, a lot of people who are advocates are more astronomy-focused. But it's really about conservation.
Michael Rymer:These questions about what is this thing, what is a comet, what is an aurora? And then even better is they ask the question well, why can't I see it? I'm seeing all these pictures of people and why can't I see it where I live? Well, let's investigate that, let's pull that thread. Why do you think you can't see it? And then that gets our foot in the door for talking about light pollution. And so it's great to have an active year like this, you know, with a couple of solar eclipses in North America, comet Aurora throughout the year. Like this is a sweet time to get people involved, and, kevin, I know you're seeing it out there on the sidewalk, people asking you questions.
Bill McGeeney:It's still fun, yes, yeah, kevin, are you seeing people come up and actually be like, oh, I can't see this from home?
Kevin Beare:Yeah, kevin, are you seeing people come up and actually be like, oh, I can't see this from home? I took a test picture, saw it. I tried to manipulate my telescope. Unfortunately, I'm down to one telescope right now. I'm having upgrade issues with a software issue with Vionis, but they're working on that. But yes, people are extremely enthused.
Kevin Beare:But again, I tried last night to be able to share it in the downtown Cape May Nuts crazy. I took a test picture from where I was across the street I could see it, shared it with people and like, oh, wow, that's great. I said it's because of light pollution that we're not able to see it here and people were down at the beach, you know, a block away, and they're coming up showing me pictures of it. So again, people are so enthused with this. I mean it's great to be able to have the chatter and the news supporting it but also being able to share with it. You know, again, this is what happens when you know we're in the middle of Cape May trying this.
Kevin Beare:But again, it's just about exposure. I was able to see the comet but nothing like I was able to get at the beach. Again, totally two different. You know pictures and I shared that with him. I said this is a picture with light pollution and this is a picture you know, looking out at the bay. So with light, that's, you know, 17 miles across to Dover, delaware, right right, yeah, it's wonderful having people that they're very aware of. You know what's going on in the night sky. It's really wonderful.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, that does sound fantastic and I'm glad that you know you're making that distinction. One of the things I would do for outreach is this is pre-COVID days, but when I have a 12-inch Dobsonian telescope and for you at home, if you're not aware of it, it's just a kind of a tubular telescope that pivots from the ground and what I would do for star parties is I would have kids. When they would come up, I'll just take their phone, give them a picture of Saturn or Jupiter or whatever, and then you know, that way they have something to show to their friends. Because to me, the takeaway is that you know, you have this, this is yours now you have ownership on this and you can, you know, maybe you'll be able to gain more interest or maybe you'll you'll be able to drive into, kind of see more of that, since now you have ownership of it.
Kevin Beare:Well, just real quickly. This past summer, though I don't know if you're aware of it Well, just real quickly. This past summer, though I don't know if you're aware of it, cape May, we had arches over the promenade. Promes used to be a boardwalk. People used to walk really well dressed up, and back in the 1900s they had 19.
Kevin Beare:When was it? It was the 1900s that they put these arches up and they had lights on them at some point, and it was in the 1940s that they dismantled them because the city of Cape May didn't have the money to be able to keep on replacing these things because of hurricanes, and they didn't want to pay the electric bill. So anyway, a couple of years ago there was chatter about putting the arches back up and I was really a negative guy. I was like man, I don't know about that, I don't know about that. Well, the first time I saw them and I went out with my telescope, the first thing I noticed is that they took down all the telephone poles, they took down all the wires and they took down all the streetlights where they put them. So it was a huge, huge change. And again people started to come up.
Kevin Beare:You know the city of Cape May and we did this and I'm like oh no, no, no, no. Look down to the west and take a look at where you see those. You know the light pollution, see the wires and see the yellow lights up. Even though they're yellow 27, 3000 watt light or 3000 Kelvin lights they're still annoying. And I said we have dark sky here. This has helped us to be able to look across the street, you know, to the North sea, the North star, which I couldn't see the year before with the street lights that they had up there.
Kevin Beare:So again, there was an improvement and an educational moment, and people like I never thought of it that way. So again, even though they saw this promenade with new arches that were obscuring the view, it was a matter of what's behind that. Again, there's more darkness in that sky than there was previously and people started to say, oh, thank you for bringing that to my attention. So again, it's been fun to be able to get people that thought it was negative but to turn it into a positive, just with educating them, that look down the street where they didn't remove those traffic or street lights and the light pollution. So again, yeah, it's helping.
Bill McGeeney:That's a really good point. Pointing out those wins, that's a good point.
Kevin Beare:Yes, yes, that's really good.
Bill McGeeney:You try your best People don't recognize that. Most people wouldn't be at all thinking in that wavelength.
Kevin Beare:Right, yeah, you have to look, you know, again, even though you're seeing something that is, you know, you're not used to, people don't like change, you know, again, it's like it is what it is, but everything is changing. Everything we see through our telescopes is moving. We don't know it, but everything is moving and changing. But again, once you just try to, and again, what we're doing here today, it's all about educating, you know, communicating, educating, communicating, educating. You know, like, you know, this isn't that bad. It's like you know, there's a win here and it's just, you know, a matter of communicating.
Bill McGeeney:Well, I think we hit on the astrophotography part of the show pretty darn well.
Bill McGeeney:And I appreciate the great conversation we have through here.
Bill McGeeney:One the great conversation we have through here.
Bill McGeeney:One last thing I think I just want to touch on is we had, like, did you guys at all take a look at the photos from pre-helena and in post-helena, as it ripped through to south, ripped through to carolinas and georgia and alabama in that area?
Bill McGeeney:It's kind of astounding how you have a patchwork if you haven't seen it at home I know there's a meme about this one out there, but we have the actual noah video on that and if you have a patchwork If you haven't seen it at home I know there's a meme about this one out there, but we have the actual NOAA video on that and you have essentially a grid work of lights, satellite imagery. And then it just went black where the hurricane passed through, and I know we have some listeners probably who've been affected by this hurricane and it's been devastating for many people in the South. It's really interesting to see that disparity. And a question I just wonder when we look at modernity, we so much base everything on light. Do you guys think that tells the whole story of what's going on there?
Michael Rymer:Man, it paints a picture for sure. I mean seeing those before and afters in that part of the country. You really see. I mean, obviously I can point out Atlanta. I don't have to know the inner workings of the state of Georgia to know exactly where Atlanta is looking at that map, but you can also, you could probably, if you knew a little bit better about Georgia, you, you could point out those smaller cities if you will. But with all that, especially in the southeastern part of the state, like, obviously, those strings of lights are connecting, they're connecting roads in in, you know, arteries through the state, and all that being gone, you know it's, it's quite breathtaking to see that that infrastructure can be so, just in an instant, wiped away.
Michael Rymer:But I look at something like this, and this is only through my point of view. I look at something like this and I think, ok, this is obviously horrible. People's lives have been ruined, lives lost. It's awful situation, no two ways about it.
Michael Rymer:But what an opportunity to, as these towns were built, think about all right, how do we build things better?
Michael Rymer:You know, maybe these towns weren't, you know, in a place to modernize things, but now this great force of nature came and made the decision that it's there's time to kind of start fresh and start looking at doing things better. And hopefully part of that conversation is how we do lighting better, you know, cause it's going to have to be replaced, you know. And so what better way to look at it? Okay, what can we do? What resources do we have to look at this and do things in a more responsible way? And so, like that's me trying to look at the silver lining of something like a destructive hurricane, and I really hope that the people of Georgia and these towns can think about that. You know if, do we need a light here? You know there was a light here before. Do we need it now? You know it's a little bit different development from what it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. So that's kind of a hope that I have when I see things like this.
Bill McGeeney:Or potentially have more responsible fixtures right. Yeah, because the chances are the light's still probably going to be there, but instead of having it as a 4,000 Kelvin light or some kind of random sodium, you could have a more responsible fixture in there.
Michael Rymer:Yeah, no doubt all of these lights that will be replaced are probably going to be LED. Yeah, because that's just going to be the standard from now on.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, without a doubt they're going to be LED.
Michael Rymer:So hopefully it's just yeah, it's fully shielded. Low brightness, you know, low lumen output, warmer color temperature, and that's going to make this before map look a little bit better.
Bill McGeeney:And the warmer temperature too is something that I've noticed in this show in time doing this show is that most people prefer warmer temperatures. It's not even a toss-up you see city polls and you see respondents and surveys and whatnot when communities go out to kind of see about new LED changeover and they prefer the warmer. Like 2,700 is a preferable number for a lot of people. They don't want 4,000. You know, 3,000 they're, I guess, probably fine with, but 2,700, I think, is where they want to be. And it's interesting we never hear that in news. That's never in any of the news, but it seems to be a constant theme whenever I come across these stories about cities doing LED upgrades and they go and survey the community and the community says warmer to better In my mind, saying we don't want to change stuff outside too much.
Frank Turina:I think that's what lighting retrofits for the most part have been that people want to see warmer lights. Right, I don't know of any where they said, oh, this isn't harsh enough, it's not bluish enough, I want it to look more like a prison yard. You never see comments or you never see cities and towns backpedaling to make the lights more bright and more blue. They're always putting in bright 4,000, 5,000 Kelvin lights and then backtracking and replacing them with with warmer lights. You know it never goes the other way. It's always going towards warmer lights.
Bill McGeeney:When you see these sort of push back from from cities and towns, yeah, and that blows my mind, cause these cities and towns, and they go and they everyone's doing this, everyone's going through this upgrade and it seemingly none of the communities look at each other when they do this. It just feels very much like the salesman is driving the ship and, for whatever reason, it gets big commission on 4 000 kelvin lights, probably because I guess they're maybe the cheapest to make, although we had tim brothers from massachusetts on who told us that his light fixtures 2700s the actual good light fixtures were cheaper than the normal ones that the municipality was trying to push down.
Frank Turina:So yep, I think early on it was. This is not the case anymore, but early on the peak efficiency for LEDs was around that 3000, 4000 Kelvin actually more like 4000 Kelvin, right, so you could get the most light output for the minimal amount of input energy input. So that's why I think initially, when LEDs were first making an appearance in cities and towns, it was, hey, let's maximize the efficiency, get the most amount of light as we can and drive down our energy costs as much as we can. And then that's when a lot of the pushback started.
Bill McGeeney:Oh, that's really good knowledge, frank. I didn't realize that. That makes plenty of sense if that's an efficiency gain is what they're looking at there. Well, this blends nicely into some news. We got out of Memphis where the Department of Energy gave Memphis a Sustainability and Lighting Award. Actually, they're a concessionaire A Sustainability and Lighting Award. Actually, they're a concessionaire A Sustainability and Lighting Award for converting 77,000 streetlights and they're doing this over the course of I believe it's two years. They're not done yet they're really close and they're switching it over to 3,000 Kelvin warm white LED. They predict to be saving 26,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
Kevin Beare:Do you remember when there were blackouts? I share this all the time with Street Corner Astronomy because people come down from New York City and Philadelphia, but there's been blackouts in New York City years ago. Thankfully it's not happening frequently, but when it does occur, guess what the most amount of phone calls are to 911? Anybody hear that Feel?
Michael Rymer:free the stars in the sky.
Frank Turina:The strange clouds.
Kevin Beare:They were calling the police on the Milky Way. Yeah, so they were seeing something that they never saw before. So they were calling the police on the Milky Way because they could see it. It's just interesting what happened during blackouts. So, and again, when they just put up those prominent or the promenade lights, they put you know 27 K lights in.
Kevin Beare:Well, guess what? The County came in and put 5,000 K lights on their light poles at the entrances for those, you know, for the promenade. So it just light polluted the promenade, even though they're shooting down. But you can see the difference between the 27, you know K, you know, underneath the, uh, the promenade, and all of a sudden and I've already talked to the mayor, but here's a situation where the County is not on the same page of, you know the, the city of Cape May, you know coming up with new ordinances for, you know, light pollution. You know that they just enacted within the past year. But here's the county, you know, going against. You know that they're not on the same page. So it's again about educating, you know, our county people that are, you know, putting in these lights.
Bill McGeeney:Well, you do have the educational vote side too there, kevin. That always helps. Well, one thing that I thought was interesting about the North Carolina situation was that during big storms like this, you expect to have cell phone service at the very least. That's not the case in North Carolina. That fell through because of the rough damage that was going on in the choppy terrain. Well, what about this? We have potentially good news for your hurricane victims, but how about for the rest of us? Actually, good news for your hurricane victims, but how about for the rest of us? Cell phone service may forever be changed, as last month SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched new AST space mobile satellites named the Blue Walkers into orbit, bringing awe and fear from land-based astronomers, when the unfurled satellite held a brightness magnitude of 3.5 and then, once unraveled, it shot up to 0.4 magnitude, making it 100 times brighter.
Bill McGeeney:For you at home, who may not be aware of this astronomical measure of magnitude? It's brightness of sky objects. The measure is a bit counterintuitive. First, it's a logarithmic scale, so it's not linear. So think about it's the brightness increases and decreases at greater rate than simply one increment. It's kind of akin to a dimmer switch. But the other piece about magnitude is that a scale runs a bit like a golf game Negative magnitudes are very bright, while higher number positive magnitudes are very dim. So in this case, in October of 2023, when the initial Blue Walker unfurled, it had a magnitude of close to zero, whereas most Starlink trains that you probably have seen somewhere sit between one to two magnitude, making the Starlink trains dimmer than the unfurled Blue Walker. Currently, starlink satellites sit somewhere in the three to five range of magnitudes. Most suburban skies may have a limiting magnitude due to light pollution around four or five, six, just to put all of this into perspective.
Bill McGeeney:So, circling back to the story at hand here, these are big satellites, big enough that CEO Abel Avalon proudly proclaimed on X when a company first tested to blue walkers made in Texas. Size matters. The hope and dream of AST is that they launch upwards of 168 satellites. Ast will be servicing the AT&T cellular network here in the States. But wait, it doesn't stop there. Ast wants to put up satellites three and a half times bigger than the current blue walkers, and the current blue walkers already sit at 690 square feet, which, unfurled, that blue walker is about the size of a studio apartment. So my gut saying this probably isn't great for the night sky. I'm just curious about your thoughts, frank, I see you moving over there. Yeah, how should we interpret this?
Frank Turina:This is a tricky one, I think you know the problem I think that's happening here is that our policies haven't caught up with the problem. Right, the problem is escalating at a really rapid rate, but our policy of reaction is so behind, and that happens a lot of times in environmental issues, where an issue takes off and a lot of damage is done before society and governments can formulate a response. So I think that's where we are with satellite and night sky protection is that right now, there really isn't much of any regulation or policy or conservation strategies to deal with this, and things are going so fast that we're seeing a lot of. You know it's going to end up. We're going to look back on this time and say, wow, a lot of damage happened, right, you know, during this timeframe and because we haven't really caught up with the on the policy side.
Frank Turina:So I think you know we're we're sort of need to step it up, we need to understand the issue more, we need to get governments involved, we need to get policies. We need to get, you know, even corporate policies. You know, get these corporations that are doing this to implement policies to reduce the problem before it gets out of hand. You know, and there's been a little bit of that, I think, with Elon Musk at least entertaining the idea of reducing the reflectivity of the Starlink satellites. There's been a little bit of those conversations, but I think that really needs to step up for us to kind of get in front of this problem.
Bill McGeeney:Well, starlink has been putting certain coatings on and they have been trying to reduce the reflexibility of it. But let me play devil's advocate here, say the Blue Walkers, knock it out of the park. And they provide outstanding service. They set the standard for LEO low Earth orbit communication satellites. Why is that bad for humanity?
Frank Turina:I don't think it is. I think it's a positive for humanity, but like many positive aspects to society, there are tradeoffs right there are externalities right. There are trade-offs right. There are externalities right. There are negative aspects, and the ultimate goal is to enhance those positives while minimizing or reducing or mitigating the negatives right. So we're trying to. I think we need to get ahead of this and start to diminish or reduce the negative consequences of this positive thing. It's just that while we wait to do that, a lot of damage can happen.
Bill McGeeney:It should be noted that I actually reached out to AST because I would like to just hear what they're doing. I haven't heard back from them, but beyond that, a story that came out of New Zealand. An international lawyer, William Grant, feels that New Zealand has a duty to protect night skies from this assault by ever larger and brighter lower earth orbit eyesores. He cites that the many new zealand indigenous communities that rely on nighttime skies for cultural significance, and pleads for a recognition of both entrepreneurial enthusiasm with government-backed restraint in the form of regulations from New Zealand-based space economy manufacturers. Grant's hope is that New Zealand is able to produce a precedent that can then be utilized as legal foundation for responsible industry practices here in the States. It very much feels like space economy is given a long leash because it's new and they really want to have you know, they want us to kind of lead the way in it Right, and I just don't see how unless it's coming from, say, in New Zealand or Europe, how you'll have any kind of standardization on on this issue.
Michael Rymer:Yeah, it's kind of one of those things where the money, money does all the talking. You know, if, if they can't launch, launch these satellites from here, they're going to do it somewhere else that will let them to. Then that's, I mean, frank, what you're kind of saying, like the policy thing. It's hard for. It's hard enough for this country to catch up on policy. We're talking about how many sovereign nations across the world kind of trying to be on the same page about things like that, especially with, you know, space communication and things of that nature, it takes a lot to get things moving. Yeah, this is really developing and evolving quickly because the money is there for it and money is going to outpace everything.
Michael Rymer:We actually had an advocate action meeting this month of September and we had Dr Lindsay DeMarci talk to us about space policy when it comes to lower satellites and things like that. So if there's more to be said about this conversation, you know I welcome people to check out the recording of that and, bill, I'd be happy to share where that lives with you for your show notes recording of that. And, bill, I'd be happy to share where that lives with you for your show notes. But yeah, I mean.
Michael Rymer:This is something that policymakers here in this country are certainly talking about more and more. It's just a matter of do we have to slam on the brakes to catch up and figure out what's good and what's not? My thing about this particular thing, too, is whether or not you know, not just, can we see these things from Earth as bright as they need to be? I'm thinking about the space junk, what that means for space travel and other endeavors that we need to put up in low Earth orbit or beyond. What does this mean for that sort of stuff? Those economies too? So it's a head scratcher, no doubt about it.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, I think John Berenstein mentioned those very issues when he came in a couple months back. Well, an additional cause for concern perhaps comes from researchers in an article in Geophysics Research Letters, which identified an estimated 646% increase in atmospheric aluminum oxides per year stemming from the high amount of disposable re-entry of these low Earth orbit satellites and which, as I understand it from when John was on, they'll be shooting up and then coming down at the same time Not obviously the same satellite, but that's kind of the way it's going to be the conveyor belt, and by coming down it means it just burns up the atmosphere, lands somewhere, I guess, in the ocean. So the fear is that the aluminum oxides may speed up ozone layer depletion, thus undoing what seemingly is the lone climate problem that humanity has actually been able to figure out. Well, let's talk about measurements. This is a pretty important topic too, and it's something that we never really talk about, at least on the innovation side, unless Ken Walczak is on, who's really well-versed in this sort of research.
Bill McGeeney:We had a couple of articles come through this month that discuss some innovative approaches to obtaining nighttime sky brightness measurements. The go-to device that many use in the nighttime sky is called a sky quality meter, often abbreviated to sqm, and the sqm meter runs in the low 100s usd and for some reason it's listed on amazon under musical instruments. You guys gotta look that up, but it is not I don't know any of your sqm do they play a tune?
Bill McGeeney:I'm not sure what they do to make it sing.
Michael Rymer:If I take my phone to it and then open up you know music app, translate the numbers right.
Bill McGeeney:So quite odd. Okay, but say you aren't happy with the SQM and you're looking for trying something different. Well, here's a do-it-yourself project that comes to us via Nature Reviews Earth and the Environment. The cylindrical devices look to be slightly longer than your standard cell phone. The data collected from the devices feeds right into the Gaia map of brightness and a natural sky model also known by the acronym GAMBANS. These devices not only measure light, but they also measure temperature and humidity. And what they are is they're devices you can make at home. The instructions are in this article, and it's actually quite a clever device that can even integrate into the open-source home assistant software. One article even has the total components priced at $65, which comes in at about half the rate of the Unihydrin SGM musical instrument. I mean meter, this little device.
Bill McGeeney:I know I was speaking to someone who I actually did a talk for not too long ago in her class. She said oh, this is great. We can actually make one of these with our robotics team. It'd be a nice little project that they could do. So this is something out there, a very neat little fun project if you're looking to build something, and there's also another option out there that I think could be very practical.
Bill McGeeney:Something like this went mainstream. I think it'd be very practical for applications for municipal officers, I think, code enforcement, or municipal lighting engineers. In a paper from the journal Drones, researchers attempted to build a purposeful drone for the explicit goal of measuring light pollution at a micro level, and that is to say at a warehouse facility or a specific street lamp, or even a house, a yard. So something very, very nuanced instead of being a much more macro view, and I'm curious about this drone idea, do you think we could actually ever have better tools? And this is always a hiccup for municipalities, where they can't get enforcement of these codes. Would this be a path to actually having enforcement of that code?
Frank Turina:I think it does fill a need right. We have been historically been looking at light pollution at this macro level where we're looking at, oh, the amount of light from a city, light done from a city or national you know levels or global levels, or you know we've been measuring it at that kind of a scale. And you know, having you know you, you can, you can enforce, you can manage what you can measure Right, and so you can measure the, the light levels coming from individual facilities. Then you've got somebody that's responsible for that facility right. Then you can sort of target your enforcement, target your work and your management and your outreach to people that you know are kind of the hot spots.
Frank Turina:We've sort of known some things, but from a very sort of anecdotal way. When I lived in Fort Collins, the worst offenders for light pollution were the car lots. Right, car lots are notorious for just lighting up everything. But having a way to measure that and put it into context with other facilities was something that we really couldn't do very well, and so I think having a drone or a measurement device that can look at light pollution at that level would be really valuable in terms of helping us manage, not necessarily just enforcing but just helping us do outreach and manage and go and talk to those people and that way you're sort of putting your resources and your time in the places that you're going to get the most benefit.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, and Frank, I feel like a lot of the issues that we see pop up around municipal lighting, around light trespass, are really driven because there's a lack of data, right, and if we have more data, if we have more measurements in general, right, I think, at least to me, I think that's how, if we have more data, if we have more measurements in general, I think, at least to me, I think that's how, if we have more measurements and more data, we'd have better principled approaches to how we do outdoor lighting.
Frank Turina:Do that measurement on this individual facility level, then you even you know by an order of magnitude. You increase your ability to really manage that resource effectively.
Bill McGeeney:And then Kevin can go back and point to Cape May County and say, hey, look guys, look at these numbers right here. You know, we were fine, we had a nice, we covered all of our foot candles here. But now we have a nice. We covered all of our foot candles here, but now we have enough to light up part of the moon yeah, we have again.
Kevin Beare:They just, they just actually, you know, put this ordinance in and I've been hearing chatter around town from you know, again I'm I'm concerned that again they have restrictions on residents but they don't have it on commercial properties. So you know, again, it's a little bit of a double-edged sword. So now, all of a sudden, have restrictions on residents but they don't have it on commercial properties. So you know, again, it's a little bit of a double-edged sword. So now, all of a sudden, you've got, you know, and again I like the idea of at least letting people know.
Kevin Beare:We live in a vacationary, so people have a lot of rental homes and they light them up at night. But again, what kind of lighting are you doing? You're doing up lighting, down lighting, and and again I like the idea of policing, you know, maybe the night sky. So again, but you know, putting warnings out, you know, instead of tickets, but just educating people that you know your lights are too bright. You know, again, it's like we're we're starting, but we had these ordinances and it's just re-educating, but making people accountable, that you know we do have this. So and I'm doing my best just to let people know that no, this is light pollution and this is how it can help. So you know, we just do our best.
Bill McGeeney:Kevin, you're in a unique spot too, because we'll get to it in the second half, but Cape May and I don't want to dwell on it too much here but Cape May is such an ecologically important area of the country for birding insects it's a very important spot and I think there is something to be said for having responsible policies in such an important area. Well, since you're talking about people's responses or people's understanding of this, there's a study that came out in the Journal of Urban Management and I don't know how many of you guys read the study, Frank, I feel like you did. So you're probably not allowed to respond to this one, but I don't know about Michael or Kevin, so I'll go through to see. The researchers polled 358 individuals between 15 to 65 to see what they knew about light pollution. This is over in India. Now I'm going to ask you two gentlemen to pick a number closest to the real number without going over. So question number one in this study, what percentage of folks polled heard the term light pollution?
Michael Rymer:Michael 350 people or so polled yes In India. That's right. I'm going to go with less than 5%. I'm going to say 5%.
Bill McGeeney:Okay, kevin.
Kevin Beare:Yeah, it's less than 10%. Okay, 10% less than 10.
Bill McGeeney:Kevin, you are the winner here. However, it's because you're 40% below the number of people who have actually heard of light pollution 50% of respondents had heard of light pollution, which is great news.
Kevin Beare:It is great news.
Bill McGeeney:In.
Michael Rymer:India no less. Right, kevin, we're just pessimists.
Kevin Beare:You know I had written down. I wrote down 75% because I thought it was, you know, american, and I unfortunately put down 5 or 10% because I thought it was India. But no offense, but I'm glad to hear that our numbers are really actually so low. So that's really good that you know they're getting information someplace that they've heard about it.
Bill McGeeney:That's right. Well, question number two what percentage of folks polled claimed that they'd heard about it? That's right, Well, question number two what percentage of folks polled claimed that they sometimes heard the term light pollution in their daily life.
Kevin Beare:Okay, give it to you, kevin. You can take the lead on this one.
Michael Rymer:Again, I'm going to say maybe 20%. Okay, michael, yeah, that's, I'll go 21%. I'll play prices right.
Kevin Beare:I'll play.
Michael Rymer:Price is Right, you guys both went over.
Bill McGeeney:Oh, boy yeah 10.6% of respondents felt that they sometimes heard the term light pollution in their daily life. Only 3.6% said that they heard it all the time and a majority 57.5% said not at all. Question number three what percentage of folks claim to be somewhat aware of the potential threat of light pollution? And Mike, back to you on this one.
Michael Rymer:Okay, somewhat aware, somewhat aware. I'm somewhat aware of many things in my life. I'll go with 30% Okay.
Kevin Beare:I'm not going to say 31%, but I'm going to say I'm going to say 45.
Bill McGeeney:All right, well, 31% actually, was it. So, michael, congratulations.
Michael Rymer:You should have said 31%, 30.1%.
Bill McGeeney:I think is the best answer, in that 4.5% of people were very much aware, but 47.8% were not aware of the potential threat of light pollution. So interesting study here, and I think we had an artificial light and night conference that happened last year. I think there's a similar study where many people were aware, or at least cursory aware. They kind of had this knowledge from the general conversation that it's out there. They didn't look to see what people want to do about it and hopefully it doesn't survey the same way. That survey in I think it was Switzerland where most people were aware of it, think it's terrible and want to do nothing about it.
Bill McGeeney:Let's finish up here with this last piece. This is a fun one and I don't know if you guys have been watching any of the baseball playoffs. My beloved Phillies didn't show up. They, just another group of I guess they're Reading Phillies showed up for that series against the Mets. The Phillies did not and that was quite embarrassing. But the Mets went on to play the Dodgers and in that series you got to see something that was actually pretty neat.
Bill McGeeney:In the stadium we have cheaper, more compact lighting fixtures that you can use pretty much anywhere. So what the New York Mets did in Citi Field. They hired a company called Pixmob, based out of Montreal, and they installed 3,500 LED strips on the railings in the aisles throughout the entire ballpark. That's controlled by a central location and what happens is, as the night continues, on the stadium lights are actually dimmed a little bit. It looks like the railings, the lights, the royal blue and orange of the Mets colors are going up the aisles. It's pretty neat. I'm not sure if you guys have seen anything like that. We see that a lot in college football. Usually the lights do some kind of wavy black and white thing going on. You know light isn't always bad. I mean, you're afraid that you know when it goes into an area that affects other people or affects ecology and whatnot. That's when you have problems with light pollution. But is this a pollutant situation here? This feels like a very kind of responsible approach.
Michael Rymer:Yeah, I mean, I think for me it could still be a pollutant, because no light is no pollution. But I mean, if you do it in a better way, then I think that's all we can ask for and it's great to see that. You know the Mets are taking it, you know taking some thought into it.
Frank Turina:I mean, I didn't see it, I haven't seen a picture of it, but that sounds like a really cool thing yeah, I think it's like I think we've touched on this one other shows I've been on too is there sort of a cultural aspect to light, right?
Frank Turina:So seeing the colors of your team right in light, and you know there's a, there's a kind of a, you know, like light has very positive connotations in our society and our, in our culture. And if it's a way to celebrate, you know, your team through having colored lights in the stadium, you know, I think that's a positive use of of the cultural aspect of lighting. I think, as long as it's not, you know, I think there's use and there's misuse, right, and I think if it's a, if it's a use of lighting, that's that's reasonable's use and there's misuse, right. And I think if it's a use of lighting that's reasonable and it's not a misuse of lighting where they're wasting the light or you know, shining the light up in the sky or anything, then I think it's a positive to sort of highlight the positive aspects of lighting. I don't have a problem with that. I think, as long as you know it's been, it's being done responsibly, we can celebrate light, right, we can, we can do that. So that's kind of my take on it.
Bill McGeeney:Yeah, cause, frank it's. You know you're in in a situation where you expect to have light. Right, you're at a sporting event. Now I can't vouch for the actual stadium light, the actual fixtures atop the stadium, but you're in a situation where you expect to have light. It's there for a purpose. It's actually being deliberately used. In a way, everyone there is accepting of its use. You know that's. I think it's a very different path than staying in a neighborhood or doing something in a forest. Mike, I totally understand your point. Any light, by definition, the transactions of the Royal society B, I believe that's how you say. You know they did a very good, concise and very to the point belief that light and we should be deliberate on how we use it. We also should be, you know, use it in a mindful way. And here the Mets aren't. You know they're not installing spotlights, say that you would have in Vegas or whatnot. You're not seeing these things go out into the sky. It's staying within the stadium and it's a moderate use of the light.
Frank Turina:So yeah, I also think it's important that we don't, as advocates, that we don't come across as anti-light yes, right, and. And so I think we need to focus our message on the appropriate use of lighting, because I think a lot of the reaction that we as advocates get is that, oh, you're trying to, like, get rid of all the lights, like, well, no, it's not our goal. It's just where there is lighting and where lighting is needed to do it, do it efficiently and do it, you know, in a way that that doesn't cause other ecological, human, you know, social problems yeah, I've always thought of it in a same way.
Bill McGeeney:you use pesticides right, do it in a very responsible way. Don't try and bathe the whole forest or the whole yard and pesticides. Just knock out certain areas that you need to target and then, you know, make sure you keep in a controlled location and move on. Let's stop here for today. We'll pick up the second half of the show in two weeks. I'd like to thank my guests. I think this was a lot of fun With us from the Night Sky Resource Center 15 years of hard labor in the national parks. Mr Frank Torino, thank you again for joining us, and I know you've even seen the skies from down there in the promised land of Chile. A terrible, terrible life you lead. Yeah, kevin Bear from Cape May Astro. You can find all of his videos over in TikTok and Instagram reels, and you can also say hi to him next time you're in Cape May. Where do people have to go? Are you still in the same particular spot, kevin? Where do people have to go to say hi to you?
Kevin Beare:Again right now. I've been floating around, obviously because of the comment and what's going on, so again I've been trying to post you know and let everybody know, usually on Instagram. Right now I'm working on a website more educational and expanding into YouTube, and looking forward to be able to share more. So but right now the best way to be able to contact me that I have all the news and updates you know is through Instagram. On Kate May Astro is through Instagram on KateMayAstro, okay.
Bill McGeeney:And then, lastly, we have, from Dark Sky itself, someone who really goes far and wide to make sure that we get the best skies wherever we go camping, and that's Mr Michael Reimer, who's in the middle of South Dakota right now. Is that right?
Michael Rymer:North Dakota. North Dakota, Close enough, it's very close to the border there. The tri-state area as they call it Well.
Bill McGeeney:as a reminder, you at home can join the conversation over on LinkedIn, instagram, facebook or even by texting the show right in the show notes. We record Light Pollution News once a month. This month's recording date was October 20th. Supporters of the show can join us as live audience members where we have post-show chats with guests once the recording is done. So thank you once more for joining today. I'm your host, bill McGeaney, reminding you only to shine a light where it's needed. Have a great November, everyone. We will see you in two weeks.
