Thread: Dark Skies
View Single Post
  #19  
Old 07-11-2006, 10:17 PM
okiscopey's Avatar
okiscopey (Mike)
Rocky Peak Observatory

okiscopey is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Kandos NSW
Posts: 536
Quote:
Originally Posted by glenc
It is probably a fishing fleet.
Yes that must be it.

I'd previously overlooked the FAQ page on the light pollution web site where this is mentioned:

http://www.lightpollution.it/worldatlas/pages/faq.html

Q: "What's all that light near the Falkland islands? For a small set of islands with more sheep than people, how can they possibly generate so much light?

A: Satellite data also record the offshore lights where oil and gas production is active (visible e.g. in the North Sea, Chinese Sea and Arabic Gulf), other natural gas flares (visible e.g. in Nigeria) and the fishing fleets (visible e.g. near the coast of Argentina, in Japan Sea and near Malacca). Note that their upward emission functions likely differ from the average emission function of the urban night-time lighting that we use so that the predictions of their effects have some uncertainty."

Still leaves the Parkes blob to be explained!
Reply With Quote