POLLUTION

The Sky is a Free-for-All PDF

A FRESH HAZARD at the “bottom of the garden”.

Fish cages at the Kirk Noust site approximately 0.5 mile NEE of the observatory effective from 2016.December 01.

Requests that lights should not be installed at this site but rather at other sites in Rousay Sound more distant from the observatory were ignored.

Cages imaged 2017 January 09. Nikor 50mm f/1.8 D100 SLR. A one second exposure at ISO 600.

SAVING THE PLANET

How do you find a star in this lot? And then we ask the further question: “what are we doing to our climate?”. Any further questions?

From the BBC News page 2013 June 20/21 (photo: courtesy of Andrew Knights, Manchester, U.K.)

We have just received an email from an organization (one of many these days) that urges us not to print the document unless absolutely necessary. The reason? To save the planet!

UK billionaire, Sir Richard Branson, is currently experimenting with rockets that will propel folk for short journeys high above the Earth’s surface. He has lots of takers, it would appear.

Saving the planet? Pull the other one!

2013 April 27.

The way we live today! Goodmayes District, Greater London East. a typical daytime sky view you may see almost anywhere in Britain south of the Great Glen.
 

RURAL ESSEX: The Langdon Hills district.

A summer sky completely taken over by condensation trails from civil aircraft coming and goping.

The “prestigious” Manor Road district of Chigwell, Essex. (Properties in this road can go for a song – a mere £2.5 million or more. The condensation trails come as extras without charge, though with consequences for the wider environment.)

LIGHT POLLUTION

Working at the fish cages in the Bay of Ham, Scockness, Rousay Sound, (3.5 km from the observatory site), 2012 December 04,  18h 35m UT.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to work from Orkney in the field of aurora, as the image above might indicate.

Clearly, any attempt to monitor auroral glow under these conditions is impossible. As a recent letter in The Orcadian mentioned, Orkney has sensibly sold itself as an industrial park. It is now a frenzied 24/7/365 work ethic, as they say.

Marine Energy Activities at the Fall of Warness off Eday.

Imaged from Rousay (approximately 10 Kilometres distant), JCV 2010 October 30 21h 10m UT.

JCV

Area Officer
Orkney
British Astronomical Association
Commision for Dark Skies (CfDS)

2016 August 25