I Never Realised That Light Pollution Could be Pretty

[MuddyWitch]

I grew up in a tiny village of three streets where the lights went off at 10pm, so I regularly saw the Milky Way & hundreds of stars. When we moved to the outskirts of Leicester in 1974 I hated it as all the stars were hidden by the light pollution. Then, in the Winter, it snowed & I wrote in my diary that 'tonight it never went dark!'

That phenomena has just been repeated: the light pollution is being bounced beteen the low cloud & the lying snow. You could read a book by the slightly orangey glow! It's beatiful & surreal.

MW

[KathyLauren]

Yes, I'll grudgingly admit it can be pretty.

But I was so glad to leave that behind and move to a small island with only 9 streetlights. At night, the sky gets truly dark (though sometimes I can see the light from Vancouver, 75 miles away!) and I can see the Milky Way, the Andromeda Galaxy, and all the other fine sights in the sky. I think they are much prettier. :)

[chuck_n_grace]

Hi,
If you pour motor oil into a pristine lake/pond on a very sunny day it creates beautiful rainbows. =) It's a shame that things that look nice are generally not so good: Whoppers, Big Macs, Fish n Chips, Baked potato with all the trimmings, etc.

I lived in Alaska as a kid. There were times at night when the snow clouds came in dense with large flakes. It seemed very surreal standing outside...as if there was a ceiling about 50 feet above our heads...and that we were all in a very large room. We certainly could not have appreciated that if there were no lights.

You know, if it wasn't for light pollution, us suburbanites would never move out of the suburbs and cities. I was on a farm this week in the middle of nowhere. It was absolutely breath taking to behold gazillions of stars. I'm ready to move.

Regards,
Chuck