I had a unique experience this morning, I go for a walk every morning at 5.30 and usually see Jupiter overhead and this week, the waning crescent, but today there was Orion blazing in all his glory rising in the northeast! A few minutes later, my walkman told me that the area to my northeast was experiencing a massive blackout, no street, house or traffic lights, on the return walk, all the stars in the south were struggling to peek through, as usual.
Cheers
Graeme
Horrid stuff isn't it! I live in the Gold Coast Hinterland. Earth night makes the stars over Surfers Paradise come out for their annual visit. (when everyone turns their lights off)
It's really quite amazing isn't it!
When I went to my first dark site a few weeks ago, half way through our trip, I couldn't get over looking behind and seeing the light pollution as compared to when I turned around and looked straight ahead, which was dark (was about half an hour away from lights, with another half an hour to go).
It certainly is amazing how much difference it makes. I went to Hastings Point, NSW early Saturday morning for a sunrise photography outing and the amount of stars you could see just being that far out was phenomenal! I could even see the Pleiades open cluster with the naked eye (or at least I'm fairly certain that's what I saw, I could be wrong!)
light pollution is really bad for those of us stuck in the city, i have a streetlight right on my fence that lights my backyard for me which i thought was great until i bought my telescope about 6 months ago . unfortunately i have the city to the north and the council provided pollution to the south. i did not realize how much pollution there was until i went to a dark site now i try and go once a week
I would have thought Plieades would be visible from the 'burbs' as it is so bright.
Damn, that is bad.
You're probably right but I'm never usually up early enough to see it My backyard is probably one of the better ones in suburbia as I live on a four acre block at the end of a no through road. It use to be darker until they put all these pointless street lights in.
I try to look on the bright side (umm, no pun intended ) - most of us can get to pretty good dark skies with a 1hr drive. There's actually not a lot of countries/cities around in the world where that is true. And generally we're looking up through pretty clear air, albeit not necessarily free of turbulence of course.
I'm so looking forward to seeing the arch of the milky way again from one horizon to the other at Astrofest next month....
. unfortunately i have the city to the north and the council provided pollution to the south. i did not realize how much pollution there was until i went to a dark site now i try and go once a week
My backyard is probably one of the better ones in suburbia as I live on a four acre block at the end of a no through road. It use to be darker until they put all these pointless street lights in.
) - most of us can get to pretty good dark skies with a 1hr drive. There's actually not a lot of countries/cities around in the world where that is true. And generally we're looking up through pretty clear air, albeit not necessarily free of turbulence of course. 
