This recent episode of The Simpsons was terrific. Titled, "'Scuse Me While I Miss the Sky."

Anyone catch this hilarious Simpsons episode? Lisa decides she would like to be a professional astronomer, and campaigns against light pollution in Springfield. One of my favorite scenes: Lisa visits an observatory on the outskirts of town. She asks the astronomer (standing outside the classic observatory dome at the railing,) about a career in astronomy. He explains what light pollution is, but says he can't leave to help her campaign against it because other astronomers are lurking in the woods, waiting to grab telescope time. He then throws a stapler at one of them, and several (in white scientist's coats with clipboards,) scurry off into the woods. Hilarious!
My other favorite Simpson's science moment from an earlier episode, was when Homer finds himself in another special dimension wherein mathematical formulas and geometric shapes are floating around in 3-D, and as he peers down an ever growing bottomless curvature in space he mutters, "I knew I should have read that book by that wheelchair guy."

I loved that episode! It's about time the general public got to know about Light Pollution.

Then again, they failed to mention the easiest solution to the problem: Put reflective hoods over the streetlamps. They deflect more of the light downward, which reduces the total wattage needed to illuminate the same area (thus reducing the city's electric power cost in the process!). More light on the ground, less light scattered in the air to ruin the view of the stars. Everybody wins.

I think we discussed it in this thread. Personally, I think that we need to cut out about half the street lights and maybe if we combine it with tracer's idea, we'll save the city money and reclaim the sky.

edited to add: We of course need to promptly use that money to build planetariums and observatories.

It was a microscope, not stapler. :-)

A while back, I took some long duration exposures (14 minutes is long for me :P ) Except for the occasional star trail, the sky looked like it does during the day and the trees were brightly illuminated. All because of light pollution. Thank you light pollution for marking a limit on how long an exposure can be before the star trails get overwhelmed by you. Thank you.

Still, the photos were cool.

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

Here Is a funny shot of a car flying by when i was taking a picture of the meteor shower a while ago. It ruined the shot, but it was cool. It shows the effect the light of the car had on the exposure on my digital camera. I love it. It's framed on my wall (bigger of course).

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GIYUL :-)
"It takes Thousands to fight a battle for a mile, Millions to hold an election for a nation, but it only takes One to change the world." - Dan Sandler 2002

I've wondered about that.

Back when I was flying light airplanes, my route of flight occasionally called for me to fly over Lick Observatory at night. Would the navigational lights on my plane ruin any of their experiments?

Well, I worked at Fermilab for a year on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I know they have a pretty impressive picture of a trail caused by a plane flying over the telescope. Unfortunately, it is not in the publicly released data and I don't have a copy if it.

Rob

well boys.... (and girls?)... .


http://www.saltspringisland.bc.ca/


home town right there...... no light pollition to speak of...... want to be light pollution free? Try Canada! the population of California....with ten fold the area!!!!

t'is no person for yary a yard sterling away...arr...

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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
--Bertrand Russell

A yard sterling ?!

What's that, like, 92.5% of a pure yard?

I dunno...I was just trying to make up somesort of dialogue that sounded ethnic in some obscure way....you're lucky I didn't use saint crispin's day by crikey.......

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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
--Bertrand Russell

Going into Northern Ontario in two weeks and taking my telescope (I hope.) Judging by the dark skies there on last visit, it should be a real experience. And I'm still trying to figure out Boxing Day.

Boxing Day: The day after Christmas. Officially, it's called Boxing Day because you're supposed to take all of your left-overs from Chrismtas dinner, put them in boxes, and give them to your household servants. (You do have 10 or 20 household servants, don't you? I mean, we all know that holidays are only for the insanely wealthy. At least in Canada.)

Of course, I'm sure ESPN would be willing to use "Boxing Day" in a more literal sense.

well, you certainly have 20-30 servants...don't you mr. silicon vally....


actually, in my macro econ course....I think my professor was dissing you guys (well, silicon vally as a whole)

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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
--Bertrand Russell

Well, if you count things like PDAs, PCs, dishwashing machines, etc., as "servants" ...

fair enough...they certainly are...

actually, a friend of mine just got that new Clie....you know the one that takes mpegs.......1600-1200 photos.....plays music.....holds 1.5 gigs... (with combined flash and memory stick slots)..... blue tooth wireless enabled...... it's a pretty pretty site....

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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
--Bertrand Russell

Doh!

That's right. Throwing the microscope is funny, though he'd probably want to save the eyepiece --- for sentimental reasons. :-?

why would an astronomer have a microscope? isn't that the opposite of what he needs?

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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
--Bertrand Russell

Astronomers have microscopes to throw at other astronomers

Rob

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"Crackpot theories 1 : Regular theories a billion." Fry

....but that's what Staplers are for....

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"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
--Bertrand Russell

You see microscopes are the opposite of telescopes. Telescopes look out, microscopes look in. So they are the arch enemy of telescopes and thus astronomers. :-)

Guys, guys! Maybe he needed the microscope to check for imperfections in his telescope mirror.