Light Pollution where you live

It's quite high here, and it makes me so angry. I hate illuminated billboards and only grudgingly tolerate street lights. :(

I voted "low" it's pretty good here, only spoiled by the fact that I have just moved from a place that was INCREDIBLY good, when I took the kids to Greenwich observatory a few years ago, they were pleased that when we were registering for the junior astronomers club the astronomer bloke who gave the lecture heard us say where we lived and got all excited said it was one of the best places in england to star watch!

Having said that I found the stars pretty darn impressive in Central America, and also in the Orkney Isles (accompanied on a few nights by the Northern Lights which was so damn cool can't explain!)

All in all though I think where we are now is pretty good.

Only the brightest stars are visible,and barely at that

Maybe those "brightest stars" are the planets ;)

I know, some urban areas are horrible!

The light pollution in very low where I am living at the moment. It is in the smallest capital city (hence less light pollution), many nights if it is not cloudy, you can see wealth of stars. It is even clearer at my parents place, their is 200km of bush behind our house. 

another way to explain the choices (thanks darkdean).

If you're quite in the north:
_None: little dipper constellation easy to see.
_Low: You can see the constellation, but the fainter stars need some staring and good eyesight.
_Moderate: you can see Polaris (north star) and the other 2 bright stars, but not the rest
_High: you can see the north star, but not easily
_Very High: You can't see a thing.

if your latitude is more in the 15-30 Range
_None: You can see the whole constellation
_Low: You can see the whole constellation but the faint stars are barely seen
_Moderate: You can see polaris and one other bright star, the 3rd brightest : maybe
_High: you can 'barely' see polaris
_Very High: nothing

or in a more technical way: Limiting Magnitures in order from none to very high:
_None: 6.0
_Low: 5.0
_Moderate: 4.0
_High: 2.5
_ Very High: 1.5 or less



Edited by Zitro - September 06 2007 at 22:15

well. theres the moon. a star. another star. and thats about it right in the city. that's new orleans.

It's not too bad here, but I used to Live in Chicago. Every once in a while, I may have been able to see one or two stars. I remember coing back to Michigan for a visit. I looked up on a clear, dark night. I thought, oh yeah, that's right, stars.

As a rule of thumb, I would guess that anybody with an internet connection is in a location with at least some amount of light pollution. I doubt "None" will show up very often in this poll.