Bright Light at Night is a Fright

 "Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!" --Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862

Last month, my brother and sister in law described UFO lights they saw in the early morning sky. Then one evening we met a guy that was out looking for the Starlink satellites--his description made it sound like this is what my in-laws saw. We Googled it, and yes, it was.

Satellite watching has always been a fun part of the stargazing experience. Getting a glimpse of one used to seem rare and special. When bright ones like the ISS could be seen, it was--and still is--an event to watch for.

But now, this is becoming excessive, and satellites are becoming part of the light pollution that plagues our night sky. SpaceX is intending to put 42,000 satellites in orbit--this article, which is more concerned with impacts to astronomy than stargazing, states that as of 2019, there were only 2,200 operational satellites orbiting Earth. So if you think you see them often now, just wait.

This was all relatively abstract to me--until I saw a satellite train for myself. Then the weight of the arc of history hit me--things were not getting better, and in fact they were getting much worse than I had ever imagined.

This morning I got up early to see the Jupiter-Mercury conjunction. The planets were closest together yesterday, and according to this article it was hard to see in the northern hemisphere. But I didn't get up early enough--and as I quipped on Twitter, they were hard to see in the northern hemisphere because it is winter. But this morning it wasn't the cold that stopped me. 

The stars were out and the sky was clear after last night's brief rainstorm. As I walked by the glaringly bright school parking lot, I reflected on how schools tend to be the worst light polluters--and they tend to be built near dark open spaces that would otherwise be good for stargazing. When I lived in Lee Vining, the gas stations and the bright light on the school gym were the bane of my stargazing, and even an evening walk was painful, difficult, and at times dangerous thanks to the glaring intrusive lights blasting across the landscape blinding anyone headed in their direction. Glaring lights decrease safety.

The school here is no exception, with bright parking lot lights, and really bright lights shining on the blacktop and field all night, glaring away the night vision of anyone who walks by or wants to look at the stars. The best strategy is to shield your eyes while you walk by as quickly as possible, leaving the obnoxious light pollution in your wake.

Schools are always complaining about not having enough money, but as long as they waste electricity on unnecessary and glaring lighting that assaults the vision of passersby, those complaints ring hollow.

School parking lot on the left.

Most of the bright glaring lights in the Valley are at the school.

As I headed up the hill in the dim moonlight, my eyes adjusted again to the early morning darkness. According to Google Sky Map, Jupiter and Mercury were just rising, but still out of view behind hills.

Google Sky Map showing five of the planets this morning.

There are solutions to light pollution. The lights at the Presbyterian Church parking lot are an excellent example of pleasing, low-glare effective lighting. Minimize the amount of time the lights are shining (with motion sensors). Minimize the area covered (with shielding). Minimize the brightness. The same strategies might work for satellites--and just don't blanket the sky with them.

I stopped and looked at the sky--it was clouding up rapidly (this would prevent me from seeing the conjunction). With so many planets near the sun right now, I wondered about the others, and looked to the southwest to see if Mars was still up--it was right next to the Pleiades a couple of nights ago. As I looked for recognizable stars, I saw three very bright ones that I didn't recognize. I was confused. Then I realized they were moving slowly. Then they disappeared.

I had seen a Starlink satellite train. 

And it was really confusing--while they were visible, I couldn't recognize stars or constellations. I don't care if the impact on astronomers can be mitigated--I don't want 42,000 of these bright lights covering the sky. As this article points out, the night sky is humanity's shared cultural heritage. Humans have only launched 9,000 objects into space in all of history. A handful of profit-making companies should not be able to decide on their own to change the sky this dramatically for all of humanity. I can't claim to know how many satellites should be in the sky, but this is clearly too much. SpaceX's application should be denied.

"The more we look at it the more it is apparent that economic growth is a device for providing us with the superfluous at the cost of the indispensable." --Edward Goldsmith