How to tell your neighbor to turn off his f&@king light

I live in the worst possible neighborhood for observing the night sky. Just beyond my backyard are three extremely bright streetlights that blaze photons in all directions, not just at the ground, but up into the sky and into my face.

Beyond my front yard, lies a cul-de-sac where tightly packed homes all sport lights mounted out front that seem designed to guide the space shuttle in from orbit.

Nighttime in my neighborhood is so bright, you can see your shadow. This is hardly the best environment for setting up a $5,000.00 telescope and associated imaging gear.

Usually, when I want to image, or even just get a look at a dark sky, I have to get in my car and drive about an hour to get into the mountains. Even there, in what used to be pristine skies, the glow from nearby Boulder and Denver hide many stars. It’s getting less and less worth it these days to make the drive.

I’m getting sick and tired of not being able to see the stars. Last week, I decided to do something about it, I was going to get my neighbor, one with a particularly nasty light, to turn it off at night. I had never met the family that lived there, but I was on a mission, it had to be done.

Photo Credit: Brian Jolley

Technorati Tags: astronomy, light pollution, night sky, observing, telescopes

Luckily, during the week between Christmas and New Years, we had a huge snowstorm that brought all of the people outside to shovel their driveways and let their kids play in the snow. I saw the opportunity to approach my neighbor, and I pounced.

“Hey, my name’s Tony and I live right over there. How’re doin’?”

“Great, how’re you?”

Minutes of small talk inserted here.

“Say, listen, I’m an astronomer, and I like to use my personal telescopes here at the house without having to drive up into the mountains every time. Is there any chance you’d be willing to turn off the light at the front of your house when you’re not using it?”

“Well, sure, I’d love to”, he said, “except that it’s on one of those daylight switches, it turns on when it gets dark automatically. Sorry, but I’m not sure how I can fix that.”

“That’s OK.”, I said. “Thanks anyway, it’s just that this light pollution’s getting pretty bad. I feel like we should all be doing something to gain back the stars. I can’t even use my own telescopes at my own house.” (Extremely sad puppy-face ensued).

“Man, I’d love to look through your telescopes, how often do you set them up?”, he asked.

“Not very often, it’s not really worth it.”, I answered.

Then an idea hit me.

“Say, I could set them up tonight if you want to look. The cold, clear nights following a snowstorm is always the best time to look through them because the air is so still. How about we have a star party tonight?”

“Sure! Hey Ken! Wanna look through telescopes tonight?”, he shouted to the other guy shoveling his driveway.

So, before I knew it, the whole neighborhood was gathered around asking questions and wanting to see the telescopes. This kind of stuff happens to me all the time when people find out what I do.

The sky was clear and cold with no wind anywhere. Perfect conditions for observing, except for those goddam lights. The sky was so polluted with light, that I could barely make out the pointer stars of the big dipper low in the north. Those are usually pretty bright stars.

So, I spent the night with my teacher’s hat on, telling everyone where the north star was, Orion, Taurus, and all of the other major constellations I could see. It was still pretty early in the evening, about 7:00pm, when people started to get annoyed with the lights shining in their faces.

My neighbor with the particularly obnoxious light said, “Damn, the light in front of my house is bright. Way brighter than everyone else’s.” I smiled in the dark.

I didn’t say anything, I pointed my 10-inch Meade toward the Orion nebula and gave everyone a look. After the predictable gasps and exclamations subsided, I showed them other things of interest.

Then, in the middle of my tour, obnoxious light neighbor, whom I now want to marry because he did what I was hoping he’d do, when over to his house, and unscrewed the light bulb from the light fixture in front of his house. Then everyone else went to their house and did the same. The difference was startling. In our little cul-de-sac, the universe just got a little bit brighter.

Everyone is now talking about replacing those automatic switches with a manual one. I also told them about full-cutoff fixtures like the ones in front of my house.

I’ll let you know how that goes.