The Light Pollution Map

A light pollution map showing the location of my backyard. Light pollution interrupts wildlife patterns and harms biodiversity. There are a number of ways to measure how much light pollution affects a given location (sqm, nelm), but my personal favorite way to gauge the quality of a location is the bortle scale.

Today’s map, from geographer and journalist, tim wallace, is a different perspective on light pollution in the united states. 17 rows light pollution limits the visibility of milky way to the unaided eye, the visiblity of nebulae and galaxies seen in telescopes, and raises the noise on ccd astrophotographs. Mayo +353 (0)98 49 888

Note that these instruments are not sensitive to white light from led's, now commonly used in street lights.

There are several of them, one is the light pollution map. Animals have something called a circadian rhythm that regulates when processes will take place based on night and day with one such process being melatonin production that determines when to fall asleep and wake up. The first global atlas of ocean light pollution shows that large swaths of the sea are squinting in the glare of humans’ artificial lights at. Available online for viewing, the atlas shows how and where our globe is lit up at night.