Light Pollution

When astronomers are observing the night sky sometimes their observations are hindered by light pollution, specifically skyglow. At night time a lot of light wastefully shines up into the night sky, most of this light comes from urban areas such as towns and cities where lights that are unnecessarily bright or are poorly designed so that they direct upwards, this means faint stars, distance nebulae and the Milky Way cannot be observed using a telescope.
 

This picture shows that in a rural town stars are more easily observed than in a metropolitan area where there is a lot of light pollution, this is because in urban built-up areas there are more lights which make the sky brighter. Light Pollution is a serious problem that affects astronomers all over the world, light pollution used to be solved by moving telescopes to rural areas but as more people move to rural areas, less land is available, the amount of light pollution increases and the amount of sky we can see decreases. 

Increasingly, rural areas are also beginning to become polluted with lights; this means the countryside which was the most ideal place to view stars is becoming less and less useful. The BBC said that only 1/10th of the country enjoy a truly dark sky. Whereas, in the 1950’s, most of us would be able to see the Milky Way. However, our vision is now being gradually more obscured by the result of further urbanisation and development coupled with inefficient and undesirable lighting.

With the increase in light pollution more people are electing to send their telescopes into space, this means not only are they avoiding light pollution they can also get clearer pictures because the telescopes are unhindered by clouds and other things.

In 1989 the British Astronomical Association Campaign for Dark Skies, was set up to represent the interests of people who care about the night sky, this was for both astronomers and non-astronomers. The CfDS campaign against excessive, inefficient and irresponsible lighting and work with organisations and local authorities to improve lighting in their village. CfDS can be contacted at http://www.britastro.org/dark-skies/index.html