Free Astronomy Magazine March-April 2023

11 MARCH-APRIL 2023 ASTRO PUBLISHING S tart with your own home and business: Lead by example in adopting good lighting practices. Put your own house in order first. If everyone would sim- ply keep their own light on their own property, the problems of light pollution would largely disappear. [Hotel Limpia, Fort Davis, Texas − Dark Sky Reserve] E ight levels of light pollution. The constellation Orion, represented in positions 1 to 8 on the Bortle scale. Astrophotographers often use the Bortle scale to measure the brightness (or quality) of their night sky in relation to light pollu- tion. There are nine levels on the Bortle scale (classes 1-9), with class 9 represent- ing the most extreme amount of light pollution. Levels 1 to 5 are required to see the Milky Way. [Josh Wilson/ Richie Mills/ James Markgraf/ Remco Kemperman/ Robin Lim/ Andrew Wryghte/ Carsten Groinig/ Abhiroop Bhattasali] and distinctly saw things never no- ticed, in particular a long ethereal and white-ish trail that overlooked the city. Frightened by that ominous presence, many witnesses called 911. They had never seen the Milky Way before that night. To acquire a greater awareness of the intensity and distribution of light pollution that afflicts our planet, we advise all readers to view the interactive maps made available by the Kyba team : www.lightpollu- tionmap.info and lighttrends.light- pollutionmap.info . 1994, at 4:30 in the morning. The tremors woke the population, who discovered that a blackout had hit the whole city. Plenty of people ran out of their homes and began to look around. It was strangely dark, no streetlights and few cars at that late hour. They raised their eyes to the sky the necessary environmental condi- tions and resources are not available for birds during migration or on ar- rival at their destination. Only the most ignorant human be- ings can think that artificial light is only progress and not even a prob- lem that needs to be curbed as much as possible. Unfortunately, ignorance generates more ignorance, as de- monstrated by the famous case of the 6.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Los Angeles on January 17, !