(September 26, 2012 at 1:38 pm)Welsh cake Wrote: I see nothing.
Just light pollution.
Though street lights are far more useful to us at night as a society than the cosmos in general. ^^
Yeah, light pollution's a bitch. It wasn't until that family holiday to Scotland I mentioned the other day that I saw the Milky Way for the first time in my life, though I know where it should be. Incidentally, this is the only galaxy you can observe between meals without ruining your appetite.
I agree that street lighting is an important part of our society, but that doesn't mean that the lights need to be so detrimental to the environment. It's not just to benefit a few inconsiderate astronomers who want the night sky darkened at the expense of everyone else; inefficient and intrusive lighting has a whole raft of side-effect, including the effects on wildlife. Check out the Campaign for Dark Skies (CfDS).
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
