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Dark Site Finder: tracking light pollution to find locations for stargazing

322 points| kibwen | 8 years ago |darksitefinder.com | reply

76 comments

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[+] dylan604|8 years ago|reply
I use this site frequently. Whenever I travel on assignment, I look up what the seeing will be like in that area. This sight quickly lets me know what kind of imagery will be possible. I then use other sites to get an actual seeing forecast that includes info like temperature, expected cloud coverage, wind speeds, moon phase, etc.

I recently visited Australia and New Zealand, and using this site I knew I was in for a treat at night.

Here's an example from NZ from a location that is represented by the first blue color after green: https://vimeo.com/246328898

Here's an example from Australia also in the same blue color on the map. However, this one starts while the moon is below horizon, and continues until the almost full moon gets pretty high in the sky to the point it looks like day light: https://vimeo.com/241600503

By comparison, here's a video where all of the footage was taken from a totally dark sky area of the map: https://vimeo.com/157779663 The difference from blue to black on the map is pretty significant.

I am quite the fan of this site. I'm not sure on the status of the site currently, but when I first started to use it, I believe the data was many years old at the time. Based on that, you can pretty much assume that if it is old data, then it will only have gotten brighter in any given area. Very few places take light pollution into consideration with new development.

[+] aidos|8 years ago|reply
That’s awesome! I lived most my life in nz and I still long for the stars there (living in the uk now).

I recently moved to a tiny village in the uk and the darkness is amazing. After years in London it still surprises me on a daily basis.

10 years ago I spent a month at sea and it will be hard to beat stargazing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean :-)

[+] BrandoElFollito|8 years ago|reply
Were the colors altered in your last video? Specifically the ones showing a very colorful sky?

Sorry for the naive question but I live in a city and despite having traveled a lot, it was mostly to cities as well. I cannot imagine such a sky in real life.

[+] euroclydon|8 years ago|reply
Wait... Stars are visible during the day with time-lapsed photography?
[+] hypertexthero|8 years ago|reply
Beautiful work!

Can you share the equipment you used to create these videos?

[+] jakecopp|8 years ago|reply
http://www.lightpollutionmap.info has much higher resolution data, down to tens of metres. You can also choose the dataset by year - choose the "VIIRS 2017 March" dataset for the best detail. Data comes from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) satellite [1].

For example, with the extra resolution I managed to find a dark patch near the train line in between Waterfall station and Helensburgh south of Sydney - the darkest sky until you go far past Wollongong.

[1]: https://jointmission.gsfc.nasa.gov/viirs.html

[+] rkagerer|8 years ago|reply
Is there a reason they default to the 2015 dataset instead of the 2017 dataset? Is it more complete?
[+] codebook|8 years ago|reply
It's been a really long time when I saw the milkyway in the urban area. I don't expect I can see the milkyway in the city (maybe at the total blackout?), but I hope to see it within 30min drive. Also, I hope to see more nebular in my backyard w/ decent telecope, I only could see a few famous nebular such as Orion, Omega, faint veils...

Too bad for little people to be able to see that amazing nightsky .

[+] look_lookatme|8 years ago|reply
I love looking at sites like this. My favorite is:

https://www.lightpollutionmap.info

One thing I've always been curious about is there are 3 points of brightness off the coast of Newfoundland. Does anyone know what they are?

https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=6&lat=5811787&lon=-...

[+] cordite|8 years ago|reply
This is the one my astronomer friend recommends.
[+] sizzzzlerz|8 years ago|reply
I was on a boat crusing through the Galapagos Islands and went topside to look at the southern skies. I've never been is so dark an area. The Southern Cross and the Jewel Box appeared almost 3-dimensional and the Milky Way was visible from horizon to horizon. It was the most amazing night of star watching I've ever had.
[+] StavrosK|8 years ago|reply
I was once on a beach in the southern part of Crete in Greece, many hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest city. There was no moon, and when we turned off the flashlights we could barely make each other out, but the sky was full of stars. It was glorious.
[+] kibwen|8 years ago|reply
This might just look like an alternative visualization of those composite images of the Earth from space at night, but what's nifty about this is that it purports to also show just how far from populated areas one would need to travel in order to maximize darkness.
[+] gmiller123456|8 years ago|reply
Not seeing that feature. Maybe it's somewhere on the website, but the linked page seems to just be a visualization of the common light pollution map.
[+] sharpercoder|8 years ago|reply
You can see most large metropoles having a white core. In Rotterdam and The Hague (Netherlands), this white core is in between.

Very interesting. I live on the southern outskirts of The Hague, Netherlands. Between The Hague and De Nieuwe Waterweg is the Glass City [0] located, a large area (~20x20km) with mainly greenhouses. These greenhouses use artificial light to spur growth in plants, causing the white core in the light pollution heatmap.

When I look out on my balcony to the south, the sky never turns dark. Only when there is heavy rain clouds, the light from the greenhouses dims a bit. The sky is always in an orang-y darkish glow.

[0]: https://translate.google.nl/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pre... (translated dutch wiki page, english page is only stub)

[+] stuaxo|8 years ago|reply
There should be a movement to restore darkness.

Nightlife has completely changed, music gigs are extremely well lit, where before you had a dark room and the musicians illuminated.

Old lights have been replaced one for one by much brighter LEDs.

[+] dylan604|8 years ago|reply
There is a big push by dark sky advocates to have cities rethink their lighting. Nobody really expects metropolitan areas to just suddenly go replace existing lighting, but at least for new lighting installs to use dark sky friendly lights. These just keep light shining where it's needed (shining down) versus wasting energy by lighting upwards. Some cities are positively responding, and considering this when replacing/updating lights.

The astronomy campus I frequent works closely with the local and county government to replace lights to be more dark sky friendly as they are working to be officially recognized as a dark sky location.

[+] guelo|8 years ago|reply
I don't like the key on this map. The actual map has some kind of alpha overlay that seems to go to fully transparent for the darkest parts, while the key is 100% opaque black for the darkest parts. In parts of the map it's hard to tell if you're in the darkest area. A hover info window would be helpful.
[+] suneilp|8 years ago|reply
Use the slider at the top right. It controls the overlay transparency. It's not ideal but it works to identify the darkest parts.
[+] JepZ|8 years ago|reply
Anybody knows why there is such a large area with light in nothern/central russia?
[+] akhatri_aus|8 years ago|reply
That's where the oil is as well as relatively cheap electricity. The area is quite developed for the purpose of extraction.
[+] cheschire|8 years ago|reply
And the coast of Nigeria has some odd lights as well.

edit: and in the middle of their national forest o_O

[+] maxxxxx|8 years ago|reply
I was surprised by that too. It's huge. First I thought it's the Moscow area.
[+] nsxwolf|8 years ago|reply
Does the legend not match the actual colors used on the map, or is the entire surface of the planet light polluted? I don't see a single area on the Earth that's as dark as the three darkest colors on the legend.
[+] codingdave|8 years ago|reply
The legend isn't a perfect match - there is an opacity on the color overlays that makes the black side of the legends instead be lighter shades of grey when on the map.
[+] JonathonW|8 years ago|reply
If you switch the map to full opacity (slider underneath the full screen button at the top right), the colors match the legend. There are areas in the darkest categories-- look in Nevada, for example, or just about anywhere in central Africa or Siberia.
[+] enobrev|8 years ago|reply
I use this site when trying to find good places to go camping. When I moved back to Chicago, I was pleasantly surprised to find a few decent stretches of night sky within a 4 hour drive from the city.
[+] doodlebugging|8 years ago|reply
I think this would be more useful if the color bar had a slider that tracked the user's mouse across the map.

Also, where does the color bar information come from? Is it from observational data of the dimmest magnitude stars or objects visible at a particular location or is it just integrating data from satellite based night-time passes to show light received on clear-sky passes?

Seems to be moderately useful but the actual utility of anything like this is dependent on the source and processing of the data used to create it.

[+] larrydag|8 years ago|reply
I like it but i want to know that the colors represent. For instance, what is eliminated from view in the night sky because i'm in a white, red, or green region.
[+] dylan604|8 years ago|reply
From personal experience using this map, if you're the worst areas designated by white on the map, you will be able to make out only the brightest of objects like Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Rigel, Betelgeuse, Sirius. Anything fainter will be difficult with the naked eye. As you get into the reds/oranges, you'll be able to see most of the more visible constellations. I can find all of Orion and the Big Dipper. In the yellow areas, the Pleiades cluster is pretty visible. In the green areas, you might be able to make out a faint shape of the Milky Way, but the time you're in a blue area you will definitely see it. In the black areas, it's almost overwhelming how much can be seen.

If you live in an area any where from red to white and are not usually prone to looking up, then I'd venture a guess that you might be pretty impressed by visiting a yellow to green spot on the map. Being bold and visiting a blue to black area will just blow you away.

These are all naked eye examples. Using any type of seeing aide will improve things dramatically. A simple pair of binoculars in a white part of the map will reveal so many more stars. The entire constellation of Orion can be seen in binocs. You just need a few visible starts to find your way. Any of the apps like StarWalk or StarChart will help you find your way. However, in the white parts of the map, I can never see Polaris bright enough to properly align my telescope for accurate guiding. I usually just use my phone's compass to point in the general direction of North, and go from there. In those areas, I can easily see the rings of Saturn and a few moons, make out the belts on Jupiter and several moons, and have even seen the different phases of Venus. I even took the scope out to a roof top bar a few years ago to let people see one of the PanStar comets.

[+] mlinksva|8 years ago|reply
I wonder if http://www.darksky.org/idsp/communities/ can be discerned on this map? I can't at a glance, but of course it'd be hard to tell unless the difference were pretty stark and it's hard to tell what the right comparisons are for a given community.
[+] sgt|8 years ago|reply
What stood out for me; how divided the US is. And also (expectedly), how dark North Korea is on this map in comparison to South Korea.
[+] floren|8 years ago|reply
The Gila National Forest is a pretty good-sized dark blob on that map and it truly is amazing. Midnight in March showed me an abundance of stars that I'd forgotten even existed, having lived in cities for almost 15 years. The massive fireball that lit up our campground so much we were able to turn around in time to see it was just icing on the cake.