Luna Moths and habitat

[Chuck Vaughn]

Michael Gochfeld wrote:
> 
> I must say that it's
> easy to forget how much we miss a really dark night sky here in the
> megalopolis.  I didn't realize that I haven't seen the Milky Way for
> years until we were camping out in northern Tanzania last month.  It's
> enough to make you believe in light pollution.
> 
As an amateur astronomer I can tell you that light pollution is a real
and serious problem for those of us who view the sky.

The proliferation of badly designed outdoor light fixtures is just
another example of how we are messing up our environment. With a few
notable exceptions there is no reason for any outdoor light to be
illuminating the sky. They're unsafe and they waste electricity.

Would you take all the lampshades off your indoor lights and expose
the bare bulbs? Of course not and why? Because a bare bulb in direct
view of your eyes reduces your ability to see by flooding your eyes
with bright light and restricting your pupil size. Yet this is exactly
the kind of outdoor lighting we have - brilliant unshielded lamps
that actually reduce your ability to see what they're supposed to be
illuminating.

We can have our cake and eat it too - outdoor lighting that increases
safety and reduces sky illumination. Outdoor lightning needs to be
designed to illuminate only the ground in the area of interest. No
bulb should be directly visible unless you purposely look up at it. All
fixtures should contain a reflector so that all of the light produced
is directed down. Lower wattage bulbs can be used in these fixtures
reducing electricity consumption.

If you have a chance, note the inobtrusiveness of a parking lot with
properly shielded lights compared to one with hundreds of lamps visible.
Every morning I drive by a new Intel complex on the shores of San 
Francisco Bay that has all shielded fixtures. I barely even notice
that they have hundreds of lights yet across a field is one building
with a few brilliant unshielded lamps which are extremely distracting.

If moths are suffering from the affects of outdoor lights we can do
something about it and give us astronomers a break too.

Okay, off my soapbox.....

Chuck Vaughn  <aa6g at aa6g.org>