The world at night

[CHARLIE]

Following is a note forwarded to my e-mail address. I thought it interesting enough that I though y'all might enjoy seeing it too.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We need to be thankful for all that we have... It is surely indicative with the lights!

Check out  the image at the web site below. The image is a panoramic view of all the lights  in the world as viewed from the new space station.  You can scroll East-West and North-South.

Canada's population is mostly along the US border.  Note Hawaii's Islands and Bermuda shining brightly.

Also, note how bright the Cayman  Islands and Puerto Rico are compared to neighbors  Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

See the Azores, off the West coast of Africa.

Check out the development of Israel  compared to many of the Arab countries.

Moving further east, take a good look  at the Korean peninsula which is the most striking  comparison between a third world country in the North and a capitalist society in the South.

Not much light in Africa or Australia.

Amazing  picture! You will see how much we really have compared to the rest of the world.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg

[Kevin]

You people stay up too late!

[L. Wakefield]

   Holy canoli, Charlie- that's incredible! Mexico likes the lights, eh? And Japan..

  Don't miss the Leonids! They are tonight, and- I think- toomorrow night. i have to work tomorrow, but I'm going to try to get a glimpse tonight- it will be clearere, they say. I don't work Monday days, so i'm promising myself to check it out Sunday night.

  Leo rises about midnight or 1 am, in the east (duh..) and the Leonids supposedly appear to radiate from Leo.

  Cmon, Leo! It's almost 8pm! (as bad as waiting for New Year's Eve..)    lw

[Jeff]

Looking at that makes me realize why I love the U.P. so much. Other then the desert areas of the United States, it looks like the U.P. has the least amont of lights on anywhere in the continental U.S.
When I am at the cabin, the nightsky looks 3 dimentional because of the stars. When the Northern lights are kick'en they beat the view from the lower 100 fold.

If you have never been where there is little or no light polution, you are truly missing something.

[KiwiCharlie]

Wow Charlie,

What a fabulous picture!  Nice to see NZ makes it (just!) onto a map/picture of the world!!!  Lots of times its mysteriously absent.  Not a lot of lights, and thats just the way we like it!
Go to the top of the class.
Cheers
Charlie.

[L. Wakefield]

   At 0145 EST from Hollis Maine, the constellation Leo was approximately 45* above the treeline. There was a light and drifting overcast. I watched for about 45 minutes and saw one meteor. I am hoping there will be more activity tonight, tho they say the overcast will be worse. Anyone else got any results to report? One shooting star is better than none     lw

[Corley5]

Mom and Dad have a camp in the UP.  They and the other people around the lake agreed that no one would put up security lights so it would be dark.  One fella across the lake is apparently afraid of the dark and installed one anyway.  For some reason he has trouble with broken bulbs when he's not there.  Gaylord is really bad as far a light pollution goes.  It never really gets dark there anymore just kind of dim.

[Tom]

One of the things I enjoyed the most about moving so far away from a Metropolitan area was escaping the pollution of the artificial lights (basically artificial security. A few well placed #6's from a 12 guage followed by a 00, if necessary, is much more effective)

In the past 10 years there have been placed homes on this road every 100 feet or so and street lights every 500 feet.  The neighbor next to me is closer to the road than I am but about 1500 feet from me and he has 2 city provided security lights in his yard as well as flood lights, one on each corner of his house and on his two story separate garage.  It looks like a little league ball field is up there in the woods on a foggy morning.  These folks are outside just long enough to get from their back door to their car so I don't understand the need to light up the world like that.

What people are missing.  I can see sights in the heavens that the rest of these people couldn't see even if they stuck their head out of their window. Their lights blind them to everything outside of arena that they have lit.  I can see for great distances with only the light of the moon and farther than a security light would allow even on a cloudy night.

Look at the northeast corner of Florida real close and you may see a dark spot.......that's my place...... with the NRA sticker on the door.

[DanG]

I know right where you're coming from, Tom. I moved way out here in the sticks 5 years ago, and really enjoyed the darkness at night.  Then this Moron bought the place next door and had no less than 10 of those orange looking "security" lights put in her pasture. Claims her mare is scared of the dark. RIGHT!!   Then, they put 2 cell-phone towers on the next hill (yeah folks, we got hills in Florida) so it looks like a lightning storm out there, all the time. I'm thinkin about building a big, fancy house on this place and finding me a sucker that'll give me a half-million $ for it.

[woodmills1]

did the 4 am meteor watch out in our back yard.  totally spectacular from one of the higest points around.  it was like  it was raining fire every second or so with some multiples. though we could see light pollution near the horizon to the south looking toward lowell mass. westward we could actually see the heavily retail daniel webster highway of nashua NH along with US route three.  these lights were not giving a white cast to the sky like southward.  we actually were a little over our property line on our neighbors orchard.  It is called sky farm, and it is clearly well named. kinda cold at 29 with a stiff breeze, but quite the light show right up to a spectacular pink sunrise

[Jeff]

James, I also went out just at that time. Found dense Fog. In fact it's almost 10 and its still foggy

[L. Wakefield]

   Yes, I feel like I totally lucked out up here in Maine. They had predicted cloud cover but it was crystal clear. I went out at 3 and stayed til I was starting to fall asleep at 4 or 4:30. Even walking back in, I noticed as I had my head down watching the ground in the dark that one went over and I could see the light from it. I've never seen anything like that before. 2 and 3 meteors at a time, frequently, rarely more than a minute without seeing at least one. A few with an orangy color to them.

What was SO funny is that I had been hypothermic when I was inside in bed- I do that sometimes- but outside in my sleeping bag I was at least as warm, if not warmer. I did draw the line when I started to fall asleep- I didn't feel I needed the beneficial effects of stardust on my face, and I couldn't see too well thru my eyelids.  lw

 

[Ron Wenrich]

I watched the 11:15 weather report.  It was going to be clear, and the Leonid shower was to be from 3 to 7 AM, with the peak at 5 AM.

So, we set the clock for 4:50.  Had the lawn chairs ready, plus the coat and gloves.

Woke up to cloud cover.  You would think they could get a weather forecast right when its only 6 hours away.

Went back to bed.  

[Don P]

We were at her folks place outside of Charlotte must have been over a dozen family got up this am from 4-5 and watched. Light pollution and all, they were spectacular...even drowning out the lamp behind the post office 60 yards away. Over at the brother in law's a few miles hence and at least in the 'burbs the show was apparently even better.