I am fortunate to own a pretty nice house, but unfortunate to have it located all too close to streetlights.

Therefor I'm curious: Do you have any tip regarding how to block local light effectively? Has anyone tried tents for example (normal/special observation tents)?
Vegetation won't block the local lights effectively, so I am thinking of a tent, small dome solution, but am open to ideas/opinion?

TIA!
Cheers,
Daniel

Well you know, part of the problem is that some of the light goes upwards and is reflected by dust and water in the atmosphere. You can block the light from your view, but that wont improve your ability to see starlight.

No, sure - I know. However, the local sky IS quite dark. I live on the very edge of the Stockholm suburbs and have no problem clearly seeing the milky way. Moving my small scope 50-100 meters enable me to see quite faint objects.

I just wish I could view from my backyard, where the current problem is that my eyes won't adapt as I am exposed to the local lights. If I could block them effectively, I'd have a good spot.

There is one resolution of the problem

Seriously, light pollution is really awful here, a decent South view is all but impossible because of city lighting in Edinburgh and I have to drive well out of town for any other direction. Throw in fickle clouds and my observing has to be done on the wing as time and opportunity permit. One of my closer dark locations has just been turned in a chalet holiday home building site so next year that will be a no-go

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draw a large town over your headn adn the eye piece of the telescope might work,... like with those very early cameras

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And that would ofcourse be 'towel' not 'town'. Town would be quite difficult.

I have a similar problem. My neighbor has a flood light in his back yard. Fortunately part of my house blocks it but I am confined to setting up my scope in that one small area rather than having the whole backyard. Oh well, he's old and paranoid. Anyway, once I block out that direct light it's not a problem so yeah, it sounds like all you need to do is block that direct light. If it's just one streetlight, maybe you could just put up a couple of poles and hang a sheet off of it to block the light. If there's more than one then maybe a tent would be needed.

Alternatively, I hear you can shut off a streetlight with a laser pointer. 8-[

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yes i ment towel, no town sry, or use one of those mini observatory dome's

don't remember the website where you can buy em though.

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GCS/S d(+) s+:+ a--- C++(+++)>$ W+++>$ L>+ M+>++ w++ P+>++ tv@ PS b+ DI+ G e-> h! r-- !z+

~Jorge Schrauwen

I think I'll try hunting for a suitable "normal" tent that can be modified a bit. Until then I'll just have to live with driving a few minutes until I get away from the lights. Not much of an issue yet anyway, as the nights are still too bright here....

Anyway - thanks for the comments. The gun idea *had* actually crossed my mind, briefly...

My (also old) neighbors also have a flood light. I compensated for this by making a sort of "wall" out of a 4x8 sheet of plywood and two-by-fours. The two-by-fours make a sort of stand in the shape of a right triangular prisim and the plywood is nailed to the stand so that the 8 foot length is vertical.

I place my "wall" between my neighbor's flood light and my scope in such a way that the board is as far away as possible from the scope, but so that the shawdow from the board still covers the eye-piece.

Thus, I have freedom about the yard, and I can see what's in the scope, without restricing my viewing too badly.

--hippie

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Light pollution is a huge problem for astronomers. The city lights drown out the lights from the stars above. There's nothing you can do about the general light from the city pouring upward and being diffused by particles in the atmosphere.

You can cut down on the direct glare from nearby light sources. That helps viewing a little, and makes it more comfortable. Don't invest tons in building walls, my suggestion.

Faultline

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Michael Covington says in his book in his book, "Celestial Objects for Modern Telescopes," talks about light pollution and how most of the light is wasted energy that goes into the sky, when lights should work like lampshades we put on those inside our house. He goes on to say that the best way to motivate non-astronomers is to explain how light that goes up in the sky is wasted energy--one should see the street, not the lights, and better shielding saves costs.

There's another thread about light-pollution campaigns, but he mentions The International Dark Sky Associatino, (darksky.org) and the British Astronomical Association. He said the best way to deal with this problem is to go to local authorities and offer to pay for shields. Turning off the lights by a laser pointer got a guy in Maryland in 2001 a $450 fine for tampering with county property when a neighbor reported the light out, and the repair crew saw his laser beam.

The amber-colored lights help a bit, but I think lights all need to be domed. The way houses are being built without trees in between properties, neighbor's spotlights are definitely annoying, and I found in Florida, that condo/gated communities throw off so much light that from the beach, one has to keep their eyes focused out over the ocean. We are obsessed with light, and even after they put up all these bright lights in my complex, it hasn't helped crime.

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To solve the streetlight problem:
Streetlight do have a security switch, that switches them off in case something hits the lightpost (like cars going the wrong way...).
Sometimes it will suffice to kick the lightpost very hard to switch out the light.
And voila... darkness for the rest of the night. :wink:

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