Request for Help in battle against Light Pollution

[ballaratdragons]

I have been given permission from Administration to ask the following request from IIS members.

I had a meeting with our Mayor tonight regarding Light Pollution in our District (among other astronomy points) and she has asked me to put together a submission that she can take to council and have it acted upon. (she will be in the fight as she is an amatuer astronomer too)

What I am asking here is for anyone that has attended one of our Astronomy Camps in Snake Valley to email through a letter to go into the submission. Or even if you intend to come to an Astro Camp here one day.

Possible items to mention are that you attended the Snake Valley Astronomy Camps, how you were amazed at the dark sky here, how you enjoyed the dark sky, how it would be a pity to lose our dark sky, rare to find such dark sky near a big city like Ballarat and not far from Melbourne, how it would be great to have the town lighting reduced even more, prevention of more lights, how you will return to Astro events in Snake Valley as long as Light Pollution does not become a problem, what a great place in Victoria to build an Observatory, etc etc.

If you are from interstate, please mention where you come from.

I will leave it to you good folk to say what you want. I think you get the point.


AIM
Our aim is to get the towns streetlights replaced with the correct lights (full cut-off), for residents to reduce wasted outdoor lighting, to get shrouds placed on any upward light spillage, to educate locals on excessive lighting etc, and to reclaim the sky so we can continue to have a very dark sky, especially for our Astro Camps and the observatory we soon hope to build.

email to: ken.james1 at bigpond dot com

You can address the email to the 'Snake Valley Astronomical Association' or to me (Ken James)

Thank You

[RAJAH235]

I wish you all the best in you endevour Ken. Ian & I have given you a few good links & contacts to chase up. Good luck..:2thumbs:..:2thumbs:..:2thumb s:
We can only hope that "they" listen & take heed, because it's their night sky that they're polluting as well..
Come on people, get behind Ken to keep Snake Valley skies dark....:D L.

[Dujon]

E-mail sent, Ken. Good luck.

[jjjnettie]

Good luck with it Ken.

[matt]

Good luck, Ken.

It never ceases to amaze and infuriate me how much of our residential street lighting illuminates everything else apart from the street.

There has to be a better and more efficient way of lighting what only needs to be lit?

Do we really need these "beacons" which we currently have so closely spaced along our streets?

I used to live in a third-storey flat in Kogarah in Sydney where my bedroom was practically floodlit...

on the third floor!!!!!!!!!:mad2:

[GrampianStars]

G'day Ken
take a look here
http://amper.ped.muni.cz/light/crime
Barry Clarke from ASV has done extensive research here
http://www.asv.org.au/odlighting/index.html

a petition by everyone in town sent to the major is good as well :thumbsup:

[netwolf]

Email Sent. Good luck Ken, you go get em.

"Our land abounds in nature's gifts
Of beauty rich and rare;"

Some of these our above us.

Regards

[astrogeek]

Email sent :)

[sheeny]

Best of luck Ken!

Al.

[ballaratdragons]

Thanks for the emails folks.
The ones I have recieved are excellent thanks!

Keep them coming.

Rob, yep I got copies from those links thanks :thumbsup: Good info in there!

A petition of sorts will be sent to all residents :)

[leon]

Message sent ken, (you mean it can get still darker out there)

Leon

[janoskiss]

Just sent you an email, Ken. Sorry I did not get around to it sooner. :ashamed: Hope it's not too late.

[mickoking]

In these days of looming energy shortages it make sense to properly shield external light fittings like street lights. On a brighter note I have noticed around my local area that our council is using a lot more shielded lighting and I can swear that the night sky is darker in our area now than when I moved here 8 years ago. For example I managed to spot NGC 6822 (Barnards Galaxy, local group Dwarf-irregular) last night from my suburban back yard some hours before it cumulated :thumbsup:

Best of luck Ken, I will email shortly :)

[ballaratdragons]

Not too late Steve, thanks. :thumbsup:

Still compiling it all. We have to do this slowly and correctly as we may only get one shot at it.

[ballaratdragons]

UPDATE

Finally, the submission for the reduction of Light Pollution in our town goes in to council this week.

Thank you to all who emailed their letters of support through. They are included in the submission. And thank you Ian for your info and pics to help.

After talking to our Mayor today (she has kept council updated with our quest) I was informed that council are practically ready to convert to full cut-out lighting once they review our submission and love the idea of the power saving from these lights.

But it gets better!!!

There is a town forum in support of our quest and they are going to join our submission in asking that our town be supplied with a seperate switch to turn off all town public lighting & streetlighting on Friday nights and during Astronomy Camps & nights of Astronomical events of interest.

It will be a world first!!!!

Wish us luck as the submission goes in.

[leon]

By Gee's Ken you Snake Valley lot must have some clout, your right it probably would be a world first

Leon

[Dujon]

Fantastic, Ken. Absolutely wonderful - though I'm not too sure about the Friday night light curfew; how are the pub faithful going to find their way home if they can't stagger from light pole to light pole? ;)

No doubt the crims will be happy (do you have any of those in Ballarat?).

[Argonavis]

During the 1986 apparition of Comet Halley, the Victorian Government (via a Committee considering the implications of this event) briefly toyed with the idea of blacking out street lights for a short period, to allow the populace to get a once in a lifetime view. It was, of course, rejected due to the legal liabilities if someone injures themselves.

Our society is run by lawyers for lawyers.:mad2:

[gary]

A couple of other references that might be useful to your submission.

The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) held its first Asia-Pacific
Conference in Sydney just a few weeks ago and was held so as to correspond
with the Illuminating Engineering Society of Australia and New Zealand (IESANZ)
Annual Convention.
See http://www.darksky.org/news/events-2006-asia-pacific.php
Guest speakers included David Malin, Nick Lomb from the Sydney Observatory
and Sydney Outdoor Lighting Improvement Society and Fred Watson from the AAO.
In other words, the submission might mention that the Council would be
part of a professional international movement promoting best practice in outdoor
lighting.

Secondly, as we have all been aware, the political hot-button to press this week
has been global warming and the environment. I would suggest that your
Council, though it may not be in a position to solve all of the world's problems,
can certainly play their part in this vital issue. The waste in energy contributed
by poor lighting is "low-fruit" when it comes to doing something practical that
can assist in this regard and that it is one way the Council can help make
a difference in what is a global problem.

The fact that they may actually save some money in the long term is an
obvious added bonus.

Good luck!

Best Regards

Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Fax +61-2-9457-9593
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au

[GTB_an_Owl]

Dujon
the people coming home from the pub don't need lights !

most of em would probably be 'BLIND' anyway :cheers:

[ballaratdragons]

Our one and only pub only has about 5 poor souls in it at any given night, :lol:

and they all drive home :eyepop:

It's one of those pubs if the owner feels like shutting at 8pm, he does. Stuff the customers :lol:

Gary, thanks for that. I shall certainly add the info :thumbsup:

[mickoking]

That is fantastic news Ken. Power to the people :thumbsup:

[ballaratdragons]

and less power to the lights! :lol:

[ballaratdragons]

I was invited by the Mayor to speak to council last night to get the ball rolling on the submission.

The other guest invited was Terry White from Central Highlands Sustainable Public Lighting Authority.

We both presented our goals (identical) to council, and they were very responsive and showed honest interest (especially about the money they can save with better lighting).

I had a call from the Mayor today to give me an update of the conversation after we left council chambers. She said it was well recieved and they will be persuing the matter further. The Mayor will be speaking briefly at Camp on Sunday evening to give us all an update of the proceedings and what's next.

Well, we are on our way! Lot's more meetings to go, but it is started.

Thank you to all who sent emails in support.

[mickoking]

Bloody brilliant Ken. Looks like your hard work is paying off :thumbsup:

[jase]

Great news Ken. You have the backing from a solid astronomy community. Keep pushing them.