Tech | June 09, 2009 | 50 comments

One Fifth of World's Population Can't See Milky Way At Night

source: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2797/one-fifth-us-have-lost-sight-milky-way

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Tyrannous
"Light pollution has caused one-fifth of the world's population — mostly in Europe, Britain and the US — to lose their ability to see the Milky Way in the night sky. 'The arc of the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage,' said Connie Walker, and astronomer from the US National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. Yet 'more than one fifth of the world population, two thirds of the US population and one half of the European Union population have already lost naked eye visibility of the Milky Way.'"
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50 comments // One Fifth of World's Population Can't See Milky Way At Night

  • Timothy_Boocock
  • Taurean
    • 0
      Taurean  

    • I didn't even know we could see it even with all the lights off. :(

      I'm turning 18 in a month and just learning this. I will one day though!

    • 2 years ago
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  

    • this is our neighborhood, the structure that we belong to. we are looking tward the center of the disc from the outside edge, all of the closest stars are there. ...my grandfather said for the chumash people, it is the back bone of a giant turtle and if you ever look inside a turtle shell, the resemblance is striking. the rest of the sky is filled with 2 constilations one on either side both dolphins.

    • 2 years ago
  • LemonHarangue
  • atee
  • yesindeed
  • rockfrek3
  • PajamaDan
    • 0
      PajamaDan  

    • I can see barely any night sky. Even in the most desolate parts of this state,... the sky remains fuzzy and drowned out by nearby lights. My town is a hole. All I see is smoke, smog, sirens and bad-bad people.

      I gotta move. How's the view from Canadia?

    • 2 years ago
  • twitterbot
  • justinleehodges
  • csmonut
    • 0
      csmonut  

    • I am one of the fortunate ones. The high desert night sky, especially in the winter is an amzing sight.
      Summers are good, for the Milky Way is high and bright, but the winter sky is my favorite.

    • 2 years ago
  • proxstoner
    • 0
      proxstoner  

    • its kinda sad. i have always wanted to see it. i had a chance when i was way younger, but i passed the trip because i thought it would be lame. but now i'm older...my view has changed.

    • 2 years ago
  • Khidrock
    • 0
      Khidrock  

    • :-( this makes me sad. I've always been obsessed w/ the night sky and I notice all the time that certain areas give you way more stars that others (countryside) and it's so beautiful when you see a sea of stars. I can only imagine being far enough removed from light to see what this photo shows. Hopefully people will start to realize this and put in place efforts to reduce this light for multiple reasons.

    • 2 years ago
  • Cashmere
  • kid_amy
    • 0
      kid_amy  

    • I've only ever seen it once, I was 14 it was summer and we were driving on the highways of Monterrey, Mexico, it was about 3:00 am and my dad pulled over for some reason, there weren't that many cars out and I got out of the 'burban looked up and was awestruck, the sky looked like the picture above, but there were also so many more colors and I saw so many shooting stars that night... it was incredible, I'll never forget it.

    • 2 years ago
  • krush_productions
  • Alanisnotcool
    • 0
      Alanisnotcool  

    • wow i love looking at the stars, and if you go out into the country you can see the stars way clearer but damn if i saw this I WOULD NEVER GO INSIDE

    • 2 years ago
  • Dpm
  • Robroy1
  • Skurk
  • csmonut
    • 0
      csmonut  
    • Skurk:

      That is very likely a CCD shot taken with a telescope equiped with a CCD camera.

      Here is part of an article from:
      http://www.optcorp.com/articles/ccd-imaging.aspx

      Because of a CCD chip’s greatly increased light-sensitivity compared to film, exposure times are typically much shorter; as stated above, a 2-minute unguided exposure of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) with the Meade 216XT CCD Imager, for example, outresolves photographic exposures of 30 minutes’ duration. This CCD imaging provides instant gratification—the image is immediately visible on your PC display as soon as it has been taken, without the normal darkroom work required of film. In addition film suffers from a phenomenon called reciprocity failure: the photographic emulsion becomes less and less sensitive as exposure time is increased; by contrast, the response curve of a CCD imager is linear: twice the exposure time yields exactly twice the results. And, post-exposure image processing provides an amazing level of image enhancement, an enhancement that is simply not possible with film. With advanced image processing techniques, CCD images through amateur telescopes have been taken of Jupiter, for example, that exceed the level of detail that can be photographed through the largest telescopes on Earth. As Mr. Jack Newton, one of the world’s foremost CCD imaging specialists, has said: "When I attach the Meade Pictor 416XT or 1616XTE to my 16" LX200 and expose and co-add a couple of ten-minute exposures at a random position in the sky, I am imaging faint background galaxies that quite likely have never been imaged before with any telescope, amateur or professional."

    • 2 years ago
  • kreddig
    • 0
      kreddig  

    • I doubt that any of you have ever seen the sky resemble the pic above. You need a certain lens to capture that light. However, not seeing the stars in general is just-wrong.

    • 2 years ago
  • lucidstone
    • 0
      lucidstone  

    • First time I ever saw the Milky Way was when I was 8 years old and backpacking with my family in the Adirondacks of NY.

      It was the most beautiful thing I saw up to that point . . . I slept under the stars on an open faced knoll that night instead of inside the tent.

    • 2 years ago
  • NickerBocker09
    • 0
      NickerBocker09  

    • I live about 30 miles out of DC and can always see a starry night, but I never knew you could see the galaxy until I was in Switzerland in the mountains. It was so amazing, the sky was clear and I just stared at the sky forever.

      I dont think its the death of the world though. Perhaps if we focused on getting people in space, improving space tech, etc... then people would stop having to dream about it and actually experience it.

    • 2 years ago
  • UrbanGypsy
    • 0
      UrbanGypsy  

    • When I was younger I was alway going out and looking through my telescope, but I was never able to see much.

      I managed to see Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, and obviously the Moon, but never anything other than that. Between the clouds and the light pollution here in Miami, I can't say I have ever seen a starry night in all my life.

      My grandmother tells me stories though of when she lived out in the Cuban countryside as a little girl and being able to see the stars out...

    • 2 years ago
  • clownpuncher
  • krush_productions
  • futuregen
  • Alanisnotcool
  • TheJabberwock
  • royulery
  • twitterbot
    • 0
      twitterbot  

    • @marziehg on twitter says "One fifth of human population can't see milky way at night! V. sad... as a kid I loved looking at the sky to see it."

    • 2 years ago
  • el_chivo
  • Tyrannous
  • dreamsenvoy
  • naty_forty
  • SupaDawg
    • 0
      SupaDawg  

    • I live in Calgary, Canada. I always thought i had a pretty good view of the stars in the north end of the city, but i have never once seen the Milky Way.

      Is there any easy way to calculate at what point during the night it will pass over? I'd love to make a night of this.

    • 2 years ago
  • lucidstone
    • 0
      lucidstone  
    • SupaDawg:

      If you're equipped for camping, head into the Rockies when there is a new moon and a clear sky . . . you should be able to see it then.

      Latitude effects how much you can see, and you can see it much better in the southern hemisphere than in the northern, but I've been able to see it very nicely on good nights in the middle of nowhere in Idaho and Montana.

      Here's a better explanation that also links a tool for your calculations.
      http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=711

    • 2 years ago
  • pjacobs51
    • 0
      pjacobs51  
    • SupaDawg:

      The best time of year is NOW. Sagittarius (the center of the Milky Way) should be straight overhead during June. From Calgary you may have to look towards the south a bit, anywhere from 10:00 pm on through the night.

    • 2 years ago
  • SupaDawg
  • Thargor19
  • lj111
    • 0
      lj111  

    • living where i do, i am still able to see it. i am just as amazed by it now as i was from the first time i can remember looking up and seeing it.

    • 2 years ago
  • TE1091
    • 0
      TE1091  

    • It's better to see the night sky far away from the Urban areas. Due to light waste in the sky caused by street lights and homes. We can't see the wonderful stars and lights in the skies anymore.

    • 2 years ago
  • ItsNaYo
    • 0
      ItsNaYo  

    • This is sad, I can't see it either, and when I did, it certainly didn't look like this.

      I think the more you look at the stars, the more you have to think about things. We are not even specs in the universe. (( commence thinking process ))

    • 2 years ago
  • pjacobs51
  • ItsNaYo
  • SupaDawg
  • bons
    • 0
      bons  

    • I haven't seen the milky way in ages and ages. Too much particulate matter and light pollution here. It sucks, it does.

    • 2 years ago
  • pjacobs51
    • 0
      pjacobs51  
    • Image

    • Most younger people don't even know it's up there, but if you're a bit older, you will remember a night sky like the one pictured here.

    • 2 years ago
  • Tyrannous
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